Ascension of the Spirit
by Banana Rum
Summary: Ded. to horse crazy gurl. Okay story if you smooth out the many rough parts. Inuyasha and Sango find themselves the targets of the whimful eyes of the moon princess and her groom to be. AU IyxSan SessxKago
1. Coral Daughter

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

I do not own any Inuyasha. Original characters and story concept are mine.

Chapter 1: Coral Daughter

_Sango_

_Taiji Village, Japan _

_Sengoku Jidai_

The woman's entire body convulsed painfully, but she bit her lip to keep from crying out. She clamped her eyes shut, as if convinced that that alone would keep the hurt away.

"How goes the child-bearing, josanpu-san?" a broad shouldered man flitted around his wife nervously, destroying his aura of authority.

"'Tis a hard pregnancy. But they say the more difficult it is, the child is more lively!" The midwife shook her head tiredly and tried to smile up at the Master. "Kaiyou-sama is taking it as well as can be expected, for her." The midwife chortled. "But they say a beauty in life is a beauty in death, eh?"

"Damn you, Riie."

Kaiyou didn't hear either of the remarks of ill fortune. She clenched her fists and locked her jaw shut. Even then, she couldn't stifle the bleating whimper that whispered through the dank storeroom. This treacherous place...could it truly be where her first child would be born? _Why not with the trees and the grasses and the flowers?_ She remembered vaguely asking her chichi-ue just such a question when her third sister, Sakae, was being born.

_'We can't anger the kami with a sight of such ugliness.'_ Her father had replied tartly.

_Am I really so ugly now, at this moment? That the gods cannot bear to gaze upon me?_ Kaiyou wondered feverishly. The pain was so great it was as if her soul was slowly separating from her body, sealing her off from the neglected childbirth. Had it really only been seven years since she had listened to her mother's screams as she did just the same thing?

Riie quickly slipped the damp brown paper tainted with blood and vaginal mucus from under Kaiyou and replaced it, steady, trained hands working swiftly and gently. There was no room for hesitation...mistakes. She had seen many children begin to live in this village, and half as many had seen their deaths moments later in her hands.

Looking back at Kaiyou, she saw the ugly, slimy, wet oblong head of a baby, thin, matted strands of whispy locks plastered to its head.

"It comes, Kaiyou-sama! It comes!" Riie shouted excitedly.

With a final resolute heave, the child slipped free of the womb that had been its home for so long. The baby opened its mouth, diminutive in comparison to the cries that erupted from it.

Riie grasped the child firmly in her arms, slicing the umbilical cord with her short ebony-handled dagger.

'Take this." The old woman plopped the sticky baby in its father's arms, still squirming in warm liquid. She expertly tended to Kaiyou and the unmentionable nuances of pregnancy.

Kaiyou's mate, the village leader Matsu, slowly, carefully stripped off the dirtiness on the child and gingerly inspected her. Her.

"It's a girl." Matsu announced in a state of shock, "A girl." The shouji he had half opened to the living air shut slowly in the faces of his villagers.

"Oi, Matsu-sama!"

"Is the child well? And the wife?"

"How goes-"he shut away the clamoring peasants, drowning in his joy and disappointment.

"A girl." He repeated, as if refusing to accept it.

"Yes. Now that we've established that fact, what is her name?" Riie waddled around grouchily. "An unnamed child falls easily into death."

"Sango..." Kaiyou breathed heavily, slurring the syllables to a nearly incoherent garble. "Sango, my coral daughter."

Riie glanced noncommittally at Matsu, gathering up all the putrid brown paper in her arms and dropping it into a pre-dug hole in the musty room. Then she untied her smock and threw it down as well.

"Sango." Matsu confirmed shakily.

A weak smile crossed Kaiyou's fatigued features before drifing into sleep. Matsu continued to stare at this ugly lump of flesh that was his first-born child.

...A girl?

-end chapter one

Well, I apologize horse-crazy-gurl. It's not very romantic yet. I'm not very good at writing romance stories, so bear with me. It will DEFINITELY be more romantic than this chapter. (I hope so, since Sango was only just born and we haven't even met the other character yet)

Maybe I should try one-shot romances first, ne?

Anyway, yes. 'josanpu' is the word for midwife in Japanese, the rest is pretty self-explanatory. See you in Chapter 2!


	2. Pariah

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

I do not own any Inuyasha. Original characters and story concept are mine. Again, sorry for lack of non-romantic content. Really. But, I can blame it on "I Must Be Dreaming" by Evanescence, located at http:lofidotmp3searchdotru/lofi/17/173696dotmp3 (just replace with actual dots.)

Beta read by kikyo-the-walnut/Zora

Chapter 1: Pariah

_Inuyasha_

_Niwatori Village, Japan _

_Sengoku Jidai_

"Bastard!"

"Stupid!"

"Useless!"

A hail of shimmering accusations ad threats pushed down in a torrent of hatred. Among those were stones and fire-fletched arrows of precision and craft-skill. A few of the men even sported spears and swords, though held at angles that blatantly showed that they knew not how to utilize their true power.

But even a clumsily aimed and measured spear can kill. So the youkai ran.

Only just that morning, just as the sun had begun to rise, the sea air had held a feeling of serenity to it. You could smell the rancid fish rotting in the harbor and the tangy saltiness that rose up like the tide in the sea.

What had happened? Now it was only a new memory what had already faded and worn away. A reflection. A hope.

"We've caught ourselves a fine youkai this time, men!" a gruff voice shouted,

raising his spear up so the ramshackle torches the villagers held were now reflected maliciously in the fine steel.

Their specimen growled, a low sound from deep in the throat silencing the villagers whose voices had not been quelled by their leader. It turned to face them in a feral position, crouched low on its haunches.

"Ooh, we got ourselves a hot one." A chunky man with only one eye jeered, gripping his sword in anticipation so tightly his knuckles turned white.

"Demon purging tonight will be especially enjoyable." Another called out, sizing up their opponent. What could one woodland creature do against an army of humans?

If that's what you think, you're in for a surprise." The youkai bared its teeth menacingly, jagged, glistening fangs smiling just for the thrill of the hunt.

"It speaks!" the one-eyed man stepped back a little, obviously perturbed. "It speaks!"

"And this one is going to make you regret that you caught ME in this little ritual massacre of yours." He, for it was a he, stood up straight, flexing his claws in challenge. All was silent under his cajoling, haughty stare.

The one-eyed man tried in vain to disappear into the crowd, only to be pushed forward by his peers in to a one-on-one ring with the youkai.

"I didn't mean no harm, please. I was just completing my civic duty to—"he stammered, fear registering in his eyes as he realized just what he had gotten himself into. _Foolish. _

"Your duty to who? The rest of your pack?" the youkai spat. "Too afraid to go out alone, so you hide in numbers? Pathetic." He lunged at an acute angle to the stout man and slashed at his tender chest.

"Toshou-sama!" a young man skittered to a stop at his master's body. He was skinnier, kimono tattered and worn.

"That bastard..."Toshou seethed, his breathing labored as he brought his hand up from his chest, eying the crimson blood that graced his fingertips.

The youkai swept sideways with his claws again, taking the head of the young man, who appeared to be Toshou's servant, clean off and embedding his talons a good few inches into the larger man's skull. Jumping back, he flicked the pussy entrails off with such nonchalance the entire group withdrew a little, slight gasps coming from the young boys who had just begun to slay.

"What are we waiting for, men? Kill him! We can't afford another life!" the leader ordered. No one moved.

"Kenzo-kun! Kenzo-kun!" a young woman pushed through the mob in a state of disheveled despair. "Oh...gods..." she fell to the ground weeping into her husband's body, caressing the stump of his neck that no longer held up his loving face. "He was only the faithful servant of a wealthy bitch...why couldn't we live happily together?" Through her tears, she saw her bloodied hand. Impulsively she stuck her hand into her mouth, sucking the blood off, relishing the last intimate essence of the man she loved she would ever touch.

"Kariko-san, get back! Or he'll kill you as well!"

Kariko shook her head, refusing to leave the corpse.

"You should have listened." The youkai bared his claws and grabbed the woman. "Hm. You're a young one. Pretty too." He caressed her cheek gently, streaks of blood trailing after his fingers

She whimpered, grabbing her kimono closer to her body. She could feel his hot breath on her chest and the tension of their close proximity to each other made her mouth feel thick with saliva.

"Are you scared?"

Kariko bit her lip, tears forming at the corners of her eyes, then shook her head quickly.

The youkai laughed. At first just a small chortle, then an all-out cackle.

"Someone save her! Save my daughter!" An elderly man at the back pleaded. "I can't lose her to the oni as well as my wife!" he sobbed.

"You heard the man! Get him! Kill the youkai!" the village headman ordered with renewed fire.

In an inferno of fiery, passionate hatred, the entire army of vengeful humans crashed down upon the youkai and Kariko, knocking him over so that he lay on the girl. Kicking, stomping, they tried to keep him on the ground long enough to strike a spear through his heart.

"Death to the mononoke!" the plump farmer who had spoken before proclaimed, bringing his spear down into the youkai's leg.

He grunted, acknowledging the pain but not crying out.

"Get 'im! Make him pay for killing two of our men!" the whole massive crowd chorused, closing in. The smell of salty sweat and dirty bodies was overwhelming.

The men in front were young, impressionable by such events, and rashly plunged their spears into tough demon flesh without caution.

"Wait—stop! Kari..ko." the girl's father fell silent as he reached the front and saw what had become of his beautiful daughter. Blood flowed freely from the substantially sized puncture wounds from the onslaught, spears protruding from her chest and stomach at sundry angles. The fraying reeds that made up the sandals of Kariko's father grew tainted scarlet with her blood. Tainted because it wasn't just her own pure bloodshed. It was intermingled with that of the hateful youkai.

"My...daughter." He stood in resolute silence, the tragic expression in his eyes revealing more hurt than tears alone could convey. His angst boiled into madness when the youkai still moved, struggling to rise even as he slipped into nothingness, shrapnel driving deeper into his flesh.

"Kill him. Just...kill him!" his voice was high and hysterical as he pointed accusingly at the youkai. When no one moved, he drew his own sword and brought it down on the creature's shoulder.

Again and again, stabbing at the body on the ground. Bringing his katana up for a final beheading, he began to laugh. The high-pitched giggle of insanity. He heard steel meet flesh, but when he looked down, he only saw his blade embedded halfway through Kariko's neck. A daughter, HIS daughter.

Eyes darting wildly side to side, he could see the blurred figure of the youkai, who had managed to dodge the near-fatal blow.

"Kariko-chan, what have I done?" Raising the point of the blade so that it rested gently on his belly, he said his child's name. One last time.

"Ojiichan! Stop! NO!" a little boy scrambled from his amah's arms and sprinted to the man.

"Goodbye, Koiichi." Sliding the blade in quickly, there was one last regretful thought and a sharp instant of pain before all died around him.

Silence engulfed the crowd, save for the scattered, rough breaths of the youkai.

"Go home everyone." The amah instructed slowly, as if her tongue had suddenly swollen and it was too large to form the syllables.

"But...what about the demon-purging?" a timid young man in the second row asked. He as the only one who still had a clean spear in his hands.

"GO HOME!" the woman screeched. "YOU KILLED MY ONLY FAMILY, MY FRIENDS, AND YOU WANT MORE BLOOD? MORE?" her threat broke off in a series of gasps and shuddering subs erupted from her heart, tears streaming down her creased face.

As thin rays of welcoming sunlight peeked over the hovels they called home, the crown began to disperse. The next day, all would be forgotten and life would continue as it always had. Only one woman lingered now, approaching the now unconscious youkai. "The entire Yakota family in one fight." She muttered. "The youkai are growing restless."

-end chapter two

More author's notes than anyone will ever need:

Horse-crazy-gurl: Ack, this is getting further and further away from romance, but I wrote out the whole story's outline, and it is romantic by...chapter 6 or 7! And it gets fluffier and darker from there, so...don't give up on me!

Dkorley: Thanks so much for the review!

Looser-ville: And so I write.

Misc. notes: I will try to update every Friday or Saturday, (hoping a write on Monday, finish on Tuesday, have kikyo-the-walnut beta read on Wednesday and Thursday, then type)

So theoretically I'll have this done in 13 more weeks! Chapter 3 is really a pain in the $$, so it might take longer...

See ya, Kalliel


	3. Ritual Living

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

I do not own Inuyasha etc. Original story and characters are, however. Thank you horse-crazy-gurl (my leading lady!), moggy201484271612345 (did I get the numbers right?) fenikkusu kami, purplepeopleeater, Umi Fox, and kikyo-the-walnut for the reviews! I wasn't expecting very many people to read this, but there you all are! I bow before you. Notes: I lost the outline for this chapter twice, and it was so dang LONG to write, so enjoy. No, I have not read over it myself, and no, I do not need any reminders of the long hours of writing pathetic nonsense during history and on the couch. Also, by chapter seven or so, I decided to change the rating from PG-13 to R, so if you're not allowed to read lime-ish content, I'm sorry!

Beta read by Zora/Kikyo-the-Walnut

Chapter 3: Ritual Living

_Taiji Village, Japan_

Sengoku Jidai 

"Sango-chan!" a light voice sounded, calling across the dusty village like a bird's song in summer. Two small children tousled nearby, and the call went unheeded.

"Sango! Gimmie that back!"

"Mujina-chan! Sango-chan!" the woman sang, more urgent this time. She balanced a bowl of millet waiting to be steamed on her bulging belly-a sure sign that the child inside her would soon grace her every waking moment.

As the play continued, ignoring Kaiyou's calls, the woman became irritated, shifting from side to side restlessly for a moment before storming down to the growing dust storm that was her two little ones, whether born from her or otherwise. "Sango, Mujina! There will be hell to pay if you don't come home right now and make your chichi supper!" she grabbed the girls, setting down the pot of food to free her other hand, and slapped them smartly across each dirty cheek. As tears slowly filled their eyes, Kaiyou spoke in a more gentle tone. "Now go to Riie-san's well and wash up quickly before you cook. Your father will be home shortly.

The duo nodded, unconsciously brushing back limp strands of toil-dampened hair. As they scampered off to the village's midwife, doctor, and occasional babysitter's refuge at the near edge of the village, Kaiyou watched with a slipping sense of longing.

_My Sango..._She wandered back to their home, somewhat more refined than the ones that clustered near it like tributaries in tandem with a larger river. _I was chosen to be the wife of the late headman's son solely because of my beauty. _All these nine moon-turns since her betrothal in her sixteenth year she'd known that. Many a time had see been gazed upon with lust by the scrawny status-less mercenaries that came to call on their prosperous village from time to time. When she was pregnant with Sango, she often lingered by Riie's hut after purchasing her remedial herbs, smiling at her own pale reflection. If she was pleasant to look at, then she didn't need talent as a taijiya to prosper in the village, so she had renounced demon slaying when her first child was born.

Her stomach gave a warning lurch, signaling that soon this new child would soon breathe-tomorrow, or the next day. Pushing back the rickety shouji, she slipped off her carefully woven sandals and stepper right into her tabi, drifting down toward the fire pit in the center of the cedar fortress she would hide herself in for eternity.

"Haha, we've returned." Sango's high, childish tongue announced in a singsong voice, supressing the giggles that bounced inside of her. Mujina had stolen the drinking ladle from the well, and Sango had tried to recover it, only managing to throw it down into the chilly depths of the water, never to be seen again.

Mujina wordlessly stalked into the main room, temporarily furious with Sango, and sat down and sat down on the flat, gray zabuton, mechanically producing limp vegetables from her sack and setting them in the earthenware pot to boil. She watched the dirt-tined daikon float serenely on the surface before submerging and sifting downwards until its soft, dull thud on the base of the bowl gently sounded.

Sango soon followed suit, only to be buoyed up again when she realized it was her turn to find dry wood to light the flames under their dinner.

They had traded off these evening tasks for as long as she could correctly remember. How they had joined she would never guess; she the high standing taijiya and Mujina, self-proclaimed miko and worker of dark sorcery. Of course she had asked, poked, and prodded to get more out of her wile, tricksome compatriot, but to no avail.

Finally, they had fully prepared the last meal of the day and Sango's father had returned home. Each member of the family say in resolute silence, save for Mujina. Now it was her turn for restlessness. Following the near-total consumption of her dinner- aside from the few kernels of hard millet mixed in with the white rice, creating a hodgepodge of brown and ivory designs-Mujina had squirmed unconfortably in her cramped seated position under the stern eyes of Sango's father. Not being able to think of anything else to do, she moved to pour more of the weak, tasteless tea so hastily prepared by herself. In doing to, she managed to knock over her own bowl, spilling its contents onto the scrubbed floors. She yelped as the steaming millet hit her hand and succeeded in dropping the tea as well, shattering the ages-old pitcher and dampening her yukata, seeping it with scalding lotus-scented water. Chaos ensued shortly afterward, Kaiyou doubling over in contractions and Matsu pushing Mujina out of the way of more serious injury. Sango hurried to fetch a dry yukata as Mujina's startled screams turned to low moans of discomfort.

It was no surprise that when it came time for slumber, no one was in the highest of spirits.

Mujina decided it would be best if she left for home, though the burns on her thighs made her wince as she limped out into the darkness.

"Chichi, why don't we ever let Mujina stay the night with us? Her home must be far away from here if we never see her parents." Sango objected as Matsu slammed the shouji with such ferocity they trembled in their frames.

"That...girl is an outsider. She should never of been let into the house of the village headman. She'll be the ruin of all of us, I can feel it." Matsu whispered so only Sango could hear. He knew Kaiyou hoped to make this pauper her own to care and find a mate for.

"But-"

"Go to bed!" Matsu whirled around, accidentally knocking Sango to the ground as he turned.

Sango looked up at him with a stinging glare of fury and betrayal. "Only haha is allowed to hit me." She mouthed, unable to make sound come from her throat as tears overfilled her almond eyes and riddled her sight so that her father, now attempting to atone for the accident by hugging her gently, rippled with a fish-eyed distortion.

She pulled away from his strong arms and rushed to the back room. Pulling out her futon, she brought out a silk cloth and tried to sleep.

Only moments later, "Sango-chan." Kaiyou nudged Sango's shoulder as she spoke, so softly that at first Sango wasn't completely aware that it wasn't a dream.

"Uh?" the little girl blinked the haziness from her vision.

"Your chichi loves you very much, you know that."

"Yes." Sango snuggled closer to her mother, pushing her face into Kaiyou's thick locks, intaking the heavy aroma of the kitchen and amaranth. Kaiyou put her arms around Sango, rocking her back and forth. She wasn't surprised when the muffled hiccups and slight dampness on the shoulder of her yukata permeated the silence.

"Just cry, Sango." Cry now because you won't be able to when you grow older, I know." Kaiyou soothed her only living daughter. There had been another for the briefest instant a year after Sango, but she was gone now, carried away by the rift of death. She could only hope her next child would live, at any cost.

"Haha, do the babies come out easily?"

Kaiyou stifled a chuckle. "Sango-chan, if you want to breed easy, marry a dog."

Sango stared. "What...?"

"You forget what I have told you. Dogs give birth easily, without much toil. Therefore, you must pray to the kami for a quick, clean delivery." Kaiyou chided. "Now sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

"Haha..." Sango murmured, eyes opening in paper-thin slits, the shadowed light in the corner of the sleeping room betraying no movement. Crawling out of her bed-things and placing them in her own dusty corner, she soon realized that she was alone. She could hear hushed voices outside, and the bulky silhouettes of her father and old Riie. A sudden jolt of fear shot up her spine, replacing her morning drowsiness with cold, unbidden dread. Haha would probably strike her for dropping the ladle into Riie's well--she was sure the aging hag had undoubtedly missed its presence and had come to inform her chichi-ue. Gulping down the sticky lump that had gradually thickened to a mochi-like consistency, she opened the shouji and peeked outside.

Riie was holding a baby in her arms, which was probably to be blessed by her father, the village headman, for one of the villagers. "Chichi-ue, where's haha?" It wouldn't do any good to hide. That would only serve to strengthen the burning ache on her cheeks when Kaiyou found her.

Even as the syllables rolled off her tongue, she could feel the silence's clear pool of grace marred by her rough, alien language. From the look on papa's face, there was another thing she also knew. Somehow in the grand scheme of this ritual lifestyle, a gear had gone terribly awry, smashing the complicated mechanics as easily as a samurai cuts through bamboo.

Matsu heaved his listless husk of a body up the steps, gently lifting Sango into his arms and cradling her like a newborn son, unlike the daughter she was, just as Riie had seven years ago. Sango lay there for a moment, genuinely mystified. Her confusion only began to span more leagues as raindrops sprinkled only on her, dancing gleefully on her pallid features. "Chichi-ue?" He was crying. All her life she had never seen anyone beside herself or the other village children shed tears. "Haha said..." Then, thinking better of reprimanding her father at such a time retracted her statement.

"What...did haha say?" he drew a shuddering breath, steeling himself to regain his composure before the men came to meet him for work

"Haha said you should cry only as a child, because you won't be able to when you become an adult."

_So that was her mantra. Those pained looks, Kaiyou. And those maple eyes gazing off into turbulent darkness. That is more trying than crying, Kaiyou. My Kaiyou, my darling._

"We are all children, Sango. And we will remain so—'Kodomo' of this wisened world, haha has gone elsewhere, so she can rid herself of that naivete and gain peace."

"Can I go with her?" Sango's stomach gave a sickening lurch, though still unsure of the meaning.

"No." Matsu's reply came startlingly quickly. "Not for a very long time."

"She's dead, girl. I helped birth you AND your sister as well as this child here. If you don't hurry up and name him, Matsu-sama, he too will gain 'enlightenment'." Riie scoffed a little. _Damn Buddhists. They respect the kami, yet rely on this 'Buddha' to deliver them to salvation._

Matsu gave Riie a glare of tired annoyance, then whispered, "Kohaku."

"Sango, your little brother is 'Kohaku'. Now hurry and dress. You must help me prepare the burial."

Sango shook her head slowly. An uprising...something tearing loose from her, traveling up her throat, clawing hits way out...

"Do as I say, Sango. NOW." Riie's voice held a sharpness to it that made Sango cringe as the old woman moved closer, balancing Kohaku on her knee to free a hand for grabbing Sango.

"No!" Sango screamed, burying her face in her father's haori, high-pitched bawling drawing neighbors even from the farthest side of town.

Kaiyou. Taijiya, wife, haha. _I'll always be here for you, Sango._

_Niwatori Village, Japan_

_Sengoku Jidai_

It was morning in Niwatori village. The rising sun cast a glancing sheen across the unmoving mirror of the bay, so that the miko had to avert her eyes in order to avoid being blinded. Sighing, she continued her daily traverse down to the village brothels and then back up again to the more fortunate denziens of her hometown. For so early on her journey, it was apparent that the people had gradually been incurably spoilt the further they fled into the countryside, away from war-infested areas. One woman claimed her mirror had been possessed, marring her reflection with a peculiar white rash, another complained of kitsune coming to raid her rice paddies and stealing valuable crops. Both had revealed themselves as red herrings to Midoriko. The first woman had the first sign of a dishonorable disease the doctors in Kyoto called 'leprosy', the latter guiding Midoriko to a sea of weeds, in hopes that she could possibly turn the grasses to rice by magic.

Midoriko sighed again. Such was the life of a priestess. Sometimes she wondered if she should leave the seaside hamlet and seek an area more in need of her dwindling practice. 'Just another day,' she always told herself, 'one more chance'. Her days and chances soon gave way to months and moon cycles, and she still remained in the rooster's cage, tending to the paltry accusations of youki at work.

Then, she really did feel the faintest hint of a demon aura. No, it couldn't be. Perhaps she was just reacting to the blatantly evident lack of it. _Ah, I'm getting old too soon._ But no...it was there. Intermingling with all the human ki, so faintly pulsating...but it was there.

With a little more urgency than was seemly, she hurried down the path and into the unpaved, wilder streets of the brothels. A youkai had come to raze this village! She knew she should be grieving for the loss of tranquility, but her suns and moons of waiting were finally paying up. However, when she arrived at the edge of the high streets that broke off to end at a trickle of bricks and mortar gone askew, the only emotion in her heart was dismay.

There was a youkai, sure enough. Or at least there had been. Three of the village men lay sprawled across the stain of blood, dead. In the center were two more bodies. One of them a young girl, who could be no more than sixteen, whose wedding she had attended. Kariko, that was her name. The other was the foul creature emanating the globe-light of youki, loosely swirling and evaporating. So it had all been rashly taken care of, without any consent to fetch her. She had been here, all these many years, and no one could possibly think to call the miko for assistance. Burning resentment flickered through her, warming her frozen limbs, chilled by the early morning rounds, until she gave up all hope of maintaining a professional façade and scrambled haphazardly until she reached the site of massacre. It was only then that she realized that it had not been totally and wholly 'taken care of'.

She recoiled a few steps at the stench of the coppery blood, and at the husky, rasping growls as the youkai shifted its head slightly so that one hostile amber eye fixed on her own nigh-sky ones. He was human in appearance, only distinguishable by silvery strands of grime-encrusted hair falling in a lengthy cascade down his back, two canine ears limply situated on top of his head, and deadly claws and fangs that Midoriko could not overlook.

Fear froze her reactions for a moment, each movement she made to finish him off felt like pushing through churning ocean currents. Drawing her katana, the lacquered bamboo of her armor glistened with morning dew as the sunlight peeked over the cliffs and shed a hazy brightness on the brothels.

"Youkai, do you know who I am?" she asked in challenge, not really expecting a coherent answer. Who would she? Demons couldn't be sentient beings. They were bakemono, monsters.

The youkai made an attempt to rise, biting his lip against crying out as the spears in this back and legs shifted position, but he managed to maintain a position halfway between a slouch and a crawl.

Midoriko dropped into a guard position. The youkai was determined all right, but in such an injured state, the miko also knew that it stood no chance. Advancing, she circled around her opponent before executing a well-placed lunge. The demon made no move to dodge. Instead, he did the exact opposite. _No books or masters could have ever taught him THAT. _Midoriko's mind raced as her pristine fighting arts misfired against his own wild, feral instincts. _Who in all the hells would GRAB the damned blade? _Midoriko silently argued with herself, not bothering to chastise herself as well for language.

Blood was trickling down from his hand and onto hers, staining her gloves a hue of crimson darkness. Looking up, forsaking the task of ridding him of his accursed grip on the blade, she found herself face to face with a malevolent visage of truancy of thought. The subconscious, glazed-over stare of half-formed challenge washed over her, dissolving the paltry defenses around her.

Taking advantage of the momentary weakness, the youkai forced her backward with the hilt of her sword, stabbing at her ribs and knocking the wind out of her. The miko counteracted with her own ki, throwing a ball of energy back out at him. _This will be harder than I thought._

The youkai stuck his claws into his injured shoulder, tearing the wound further. Midoriko thought that for sure he had gone mad with the pain, but soon retracted those thoughts when he swung at the open air, blood flying in crescent moon scythes straight at her, even as his body fell in an exhausted heap. The hamafuda she kept tucked in the sleeve of her haori easily obstructed the projectiles, and she was soon by the demon's side, picking up her sword as she ran, no losing any momentum...

The sudden burst of cold air and the harsh sound of shouji slamming shut jolted Midoriko awake. Hurriedly she put on a silken shawl and reopened the aforementioned paper screen. Seeing the figure, crouched just outside her door, unmoving, gave her welcoming reassurance. So the past seven years hadn't been just the strange dream of an overly-creative mind.

The very same thing that she had fought at the tender age of fifteen was seated outside her door, recognizing her being there behind him by ignoring him altogether. She still couldn't exactly say what possessed her to take a demon into her care, rescuing him from almost certain death and living with him, trusting him not to slit her throat while she slumbered.

"Hey." Their infrequent conversations were simple and to the point, and all polite suffixes either scorned or totally ignored. "What do you think you're doing out here with only hakama. At least put on your top."

"Keh."

Midoriko sighed. Since the time of their first meeting, the courage to leave Niwatori Village and wander elsewhere had been bestowed upon her, and she had gained both skill and fame. Now just the utterance of her name was a sacred chant. Whenever she traveled, he followed. Never to aid her, though. Not at all. Merely hunting for his own, killing off the occasional lesser youkai in a duel. Often too was the fight with another demon of actual skill. Those battles were either lost or won at a much greater price. Such had happened a few days before, and Midoriko had persuaded him that it would be best for his health if they rested back in Niwatori Village for a while. She had also proved that such could be a very painful thing, subduing him with a sharp rap to the side of the temple with the sheathe of her sword whenever necessary.

"Let me change your bandages then, come on." The miko bargained in an exasperated tone.

"They're fine as it is. Give me my clothes." He began to undo the old bandages, unraveling then from around his body.

Huffily, Midoriko went back inside to fetch the garments, but not before seeing for herself that his wounds were acceptably healed. Most were, now just reminders of the past. Long white scars that snaked around his thin, muscular arms and torso. One or two could have done with more salve and another day of rest, livid patches of raw skin on his lower back and shoulders, so Midoriko contented herself with the fact that she wasn't completely wrong as she haphazardly threw clothing outside in to the crisp autumn morning and continued to dress herself as well.

A few minutes later, she called testily out for him to come inside for the morning meal.

"I can hunt my own food," the youkai replied hotly.

Slamming open the shouji once more, Midoriko kicked him smartly at the back of the skull, knocking him off the veranda and onto the hard, icy ground. "You...hanyou!" she seethed, at a loss for words. "Ungrateful..."

The half-demon, as Midoriko observed, grimaced as his hands smacked onto the permafrost and his coarsely woven clothing brushed against the raw, unprotected sections of flesh. _Someone should tell'er that if she really didn't want me to get hurt, she shouldn't do things like that._

"What makes you think that some dangerous youkai isn't going to pick up you for its breakfast instead of the other way around?" Midoriko reprimanded.

"And what business is it of yours?" he shouted back, jumping up onto the veranda once more.

Their neighbors just smiled tiredly, shaking their heads. She was the legendary priestess, Midoriko. A little raucous noise at dawn was worth the protection she offered.

"Stay you there then! STARVE for all I care! Freeze! Just wait and see! A few hours and you'll be begging to be let in, crying 'Midoriko-SAMA! Forgive me!' I can hear it now!" she retorted in an overly dramatic voice, complete with drastic hand motions.

The hanyou let out a doubtful noise, halfway between a growl and a chuckle, and leapt up onto the roof of the shrine.

Midoriko slammed the shouji with such tenacity that it came off the heavily grooved track, hanging askew and welcoming the frigidity into her home. She threw her hands up into the hair, emitting a feral sound.

"I didn't know priestesses growled like dog youkai too." A faint taunt dropped from the roof.

"Shut up." Midoriko plopped down near the fire pit and poured half of the jook into her own earthen bowl. The porridge-like substance was the only hint of her decidedly Chinese upbringing, across the sea.

"I really am going to let him freeze this time." She said aloud, expression darkening. Only a moment later, she relaxed her death-grip on the hashi and drew a deep, shuddering breath to calm her. _It's much to early in the morning to be doing this kind of strenuous activity. _Midoriko chided herself. Scooping the remaining jook into his bowl, she went back outside. To her surprise, the hanyou had retired from moping on the roof and was inspecting the derailed door as Midoriko kicked it open defiantly, smashing her little annoyance under it.

He only looked up at her disdainfully, as she broke into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "And what exactly are you laughing at?" he asked skeptically.

Midoriko continued her hysterical giggling, choking out between bouts of laughter, "Sorry, I don't know! It's just so funny!", or something to that affect. _He was going to help me fix the shouji! _A strange tingling sense reverberated through her, warming her numb fingers and toes.

After the youkai had unearthed himself and grudgingly snatched breakfast from her, she asked, "Can I name you?" The same age-old question every year on the anniversary of the day they met, so to speak.

"Hell no." The same answer. The first year, she had asked why not, and he replied hotly that there was no point in having a name and it would only serve to expand her already inflated ego into thinking she was his master. He shoved the shouji back into its rightful position.

Midoriko sighed. Maybe next year. Smiling, she kissed him gently on the tip of his nose. "Thank you."

"Wha...?" Mind drawing a blank as his heart sent a red flush into his cheeks, he blinked his eyes a few times. _Naw, that didn't just happen. She's looking at me in an evil way now, she can't have just...or did she?_

"Oh yes. Since we're here in Niwatori today, we will attend Kariko-san's memorial service. And no, you can't skip it. You owe her family that much."

The demon gave her a baffled glance. _That's twice in a row now she's done that. _"Why? Who's this Kariko person?"

_Taiji Village, Japan_

Sengoku Jidai 

"Oi, Matsu-san!" an old peddler rapped on the storm shutters of the taijiya headman's home.

Timidly, a girl peeked out, shading all but her hands and feet from view.

"Who's zis?" a snappish female voice grunted, pushing back the shutters and stepping out to greet the man, who was taken aback by her rudeness.

"I—uh...Tokido Setsuo, friend of Matsu of the Taiji Village. Are you...Sango?"

"That's her over there." The other girl motioned behind her and jumped off the veranda, strolling puposefully out of the village.

"Mujina, wait! I didn't mean it! Oh, for the love of sanity, get back here, you idiot!" Sango called after her. Then she addressed the man, "You wish to speak to my chichi-ue?"

"Indeed. Last time I came by, you were just a wee child, and dear Kohaku was in your mother's womb! I bet he's grown up to be a strong young lad, just like your father! How is your mother, Kaiyou-san?"

Sango quickly turned away to hide the hot tears that reflexively sprang into her eyes, though at twelve, it had been a good five years since her death. "She...is well." Sango lied, brushing back loose strand s of dark-colored rice husk hair.

"Is your father away? Slaying?"

"Yes..." Her stomach's instinctful churning at all hid prying questions worsened.

"Why didn't you accompany him?"

"I have not been well of late, and am just now able to go about the household duties..."

"And the rash young girl with you?"

"She is my most trusted companion, Mujina, whose lore of herbs and poultices are unmatched in this region." Her throat tightened as she told yet another glaring falsehood. It was true, she had not been well and Mujina HAD cared for her, but only because it was Mujina's own curse that had accidentally struck Sango as opposed to its intended target in the first place.

Later that night, Matsu and the strange old man, Setsuo, talked long after the sun's final rays bid farewell and the last candle had ages since burnt out.

"Memorial ceremony? Yakota Kariko and her husband, as well as her father?" Matsu's bewildered exclamation told Setsuo that he had not head of the Yakota massacre so many years ago in Niwatori village, far south of here.

"Yes, yes. Of course we will attend. Why did word never reach us of their deaths? We were family! They were, Kariko was, Kaiyou's sister..."

From her futon, Sango could only hear her father's confused replies, the low, slurred voice of their visitor drifting off in thanks to the effects of the sake she and her brother Kohaku had served.

Was it that they were not wanted at the ceremony since Kaiyou had perished? With that to sleep on, Sango willed her body to relax and rest while it could, next to Kohaku, who had been through the rigorous training regiment for youths in the Taiji Village, and slept easy.

-end chapter three

Author's Ramblings:

Hey, horse-crazy-gurl! Well, for my first long romance story, I think it's pretty good, since for sure Inuyasha and Sango weren't in love at the beginning since they didn't know each other, we have to build up their romantic appeal towards each other...

Hm...what else...I tried to draw off of my limited fencing (yes, fencing, not kendo or something) for Midoriko...This chapter was pretty much unraveling plot knots and character development. Alas, so is chapter four.

As some of you know (the select few, believe me) this chapter made my go crazy and I started adding Lewis and Clark into it, scaring Sango by popping out from behind hydrangea bushes and throwing doughnuts at Midoriko, but I finally finished writing and typing and my wonderful test subject, Zora, pointed out many many sections that made no sense whatsoever. Thank you Zora!

See y'all then! I hope I have it and chapter five up by next Saturday!

Kalliel


	4. Childish Intentions

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

--

Thanks Moggy, Dkorely, MeLaiya, and wanderingserpent for the reviews! Kikyo-the-walnut, you don't count.

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Disclaimer: There is a reason this is called fanfiction…

Oh yes, and the MidorikoInuyasha kiss does NOT mean that this isn't SangoInuyasha. Geez, Zora. In Japan, a kiss is highly intimate, suggesting strong romantic love or sexual foreplay, so it kinda conveys Midoriko's feelings toward Inuyasha, ne? (Yes, mystery hanyou is Inuyasha, if it wasn't already blatantly obvious to the select few of you.) AND, Mujina is not an OC, because if I do create and OC, they die within three paragraphs anyway. Mujina is from the Inuyasha manga very very very late in the series. I'm shutting up now.

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Beta read by Kikyo-the-walnut/Zora (Thank the gods. This thing was typo land before.)

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Chapter 4: Childish Intentions--Vengeance

_Inuyasha_

_Niwatori Village, Japan _

_Sengoku Jidai_

A dozen different sights and smells bombarded the hanyou in an almost painful consistency, floundering in the jostling crowd like a life preserver cast out in the tumultuous ocean waves, a vain hope of salvation for those which were its intended in-need-of-rescue. Garish palanquins dotted the air above him, so close and threaded together it would be impossible to just simply leap above the throngs of humans and chart Midoriko's progress from there.

Clamoring merchants grabbed at him from all sides, their improbable claims merely set on outdoing the other instead of sticking to the truths of their goods.

_For a hakamairi, things sure are festive around here._ He thought miserably. Midoriko was here for Kariko's memorial, but nearly all the rest of the region had ventured to Niwatori Village for the o-higan festivities. He flinched as a group of young women and men his age brushed past him, laughing together. _After all these years I still can't shake this feeling…_

One was company-if dissatisfactory at times-two was a crowd. More than three was like a horde of enemies that pined for his death. It was as simple as that.

But Midoriko 'needed' him, or so she said, so he attempted to relax his tautening muscles, dim his currently over-sharp senses, ignore every instinct he had ingrained upon himself, and wait.

Midoriko never looked behind her once to see if the hanyou was still following. Her subtle ways of taming his wild spirit and cleansing the rift in his heart all this time were beginning to show their effects. This trip's outcome would either be a visible step forward or a reason for him to leave her and never return. That was a chance she was just going to have to take.

Threading through throngs of enthralled tourists and traveling artisans, she tried to savor the memory of that morning. The touch of his skin against hers had been so invigorating…and gods, he was warm. Even in the chill, weakened sun at dawn, he his balmy radiance was so inviting. She couldn't bear to think what would happen if she could never feel the fire-tinged aura of his youki or hear his obnoxiously rebellious insults directed at her ever again.

_That's low, Midoriko. You're in love with a demon. Unforgivably shameful. Eternally damnable. _She sighed, finally leaving the marketplace centre and coming to a halt at a glove of trees.

"Eh? This is your friend's grave?" the hanyou came up behind her, eyes scanning the crescent ring of greenery.

Midoriko turned, smiling, but even a halfwit could tell that it was a weak cover-up.

"We're lost, aren't we. You can't remember where the fucking grave is." He scowled. There were no grave markers, no tributes to the dead. What a waste of time, he thought, turning to leave.

"These are the graves. Of Kariko, her husband, her father…"

"How are you so sure?" he eyed her with a distrusting, skeptical glare.

_Don't look at me like that. It brings back bad memories. _"I buried them. Each one…of these graves is something I created. This is Kariko's employer," she said, pointing to one further from the family of dead. "And this was for someone who ended up living in the end anyway."

"And you hold responsibility for everyone in this girl's life because…" the youkai prompted in an arguing tone.

"I was the one who let them die. They were killed by a youkai that I was supposed to be guarding them from."

"One survived, still. That's good."

The corners of Midoriko's mouth twitched at his vain attempts at consoling her. "People say it was the wrong one. That he should have died anyway."

"Didn't you at least avenge them by killing the youkai?"

"No."

"Plfft. You're hopeless, you know that? You let them die, then you don't even try to at least kill whoever murdered them? What kind of priestess are you?"

"A good one. Killing it would only lead to more deaths."

"NOT killing it means it would just go and kill more and more people!" he replied.

"I don't think it would. Not after that. Not any more."

"Uh…" Her expression was so pitiful he didn't want to tongue-lash her anymore. _A flash. A scream. A distant memory. "Kariko! Get away from him!"_

--

_Taiji Village_

Sengoku Jidai 

"Curse you, Sango." Mujina seethed. "Calling me out at this time of day…" She flipped two raven locks of stray hair over her shoulder, high ponytail swishing with menace as she marched into Taiji Village and straight up to the headman's home.

Tapping her foot impatiently she reached into her plain furoshiki, drawing out a fuzzy ball of fur. "Ready Kirara? Sango-SAMA," adding the honorific sarcastically, "said that we need a ride to the memorial of her mother's sister in Niwatori."

"Finally, Mujina! It's about time!" Sango rushed out to meet her friend, followed shortly by her father. Kohaku would stay behind and continue his training.

"Sure, whatever." Mujina shrugged. Kirara, as if on command, hopped out of Mujina's arms, landing lithely on the hard-packed ground and transfiguring into her more fierce, less-portable nekomata self.

"Kirara darling, please take us to Niwatori Village…" Mujina cooed, stroking the peaches-and-cream hued mane of the large cat before climbing on as well.

The velocity at which Kirara left the ground made Sango's stomach lurch for a moment, before re-acquainting herself with the essences of flight. She had done such air-voyages with Mujina as they were growing up, but the take-off sickness was always the same. Once they were up in the air, however, Sango leaned back, not quite touching her father's form behind her, and closed her eyes.

She could almost feel the change in currents as Kirara galloped through the skies, shifting azures and dawn-tinted lavenders into near-midday blue and ivory, clean-cut clouds draping their misty bodies about the travelers. All too soon, their skyward venture came to an end, Kirara's wyrd flames touching soft earth beneath them.

They had flown over a festival in the town during their journey—why couldn't they have gone there instead? It made much more sense than mourning over someone she had never met and her father barely knew. But if they didn't pay their respects, who would?

Other people, apparently. When Matsu had questioned a passing merchant where the Yakota family gravesite could be found, he only muttered, "Yes, yes. Midoriko-sama just went there," in a broken, near-incoherent version of their dialect.

"He must have been from the north. With such an accent, it's a wonder her even sells anything around here!" Sango whispered to Mujina as the strange man went about his business.

"Yes-ah! Excuse me, ujiko-san. Do you know where the priestess Midoriko-sama has gone this morning?" Mujina broke off, stopping to ask one of the men milling about the weathered jinja, sweeping.

"The other side of town. Big huge fairy circle of trees. You can't miss it." The man grumbled with a tone of obvious disintrest.

Mujina fought off the urge to kick the man just then, bowed politely, and when he did not return the gesture, stormed off, Sango and Matsu following suit.

--

_Kariko-gumi's Gravesite_

Sengoku Jidai 

A good hunk of sunlight into midday and they were still here. What in all the hells could possibly make cleaning up a nonexistent grave so tediously long? And Midoriko was moving at such an incredibly snail-like pace, rearranging the pattern of the leaves that had fallen, for no reason that he could fathom.

Autumn was sinking in, the austere season of enigmas and hidden intentions. Trickery, treachery—

"Hey, you. Didn't you hear me, or are you going to be deaf as well as useless?" Midoriko lifted his dreary muses from his mind for the moment.

"Wuh…?"

"Go get some incense from the vendors in Niwatori." She was holding out a few of her most rare warding paraphernalia for him to barter with.

The youkai let out a disdainful 'keh'. "And why would they sell anything to me?"

"It's the ohigan. They'll sell just about anything to anyone for a profit."

"Ah…" the hanyou nodded. "And after you do your little praying ritual, we can leave?"

"Yes."

He was gone in an undefined moment before she had even finished the word.

Only moments after he made his rushed exit, a strange group of people arrived. "Are you the priestess Midoriko-sama?" a tall, broad-shouldered man asked. Behind him were two girls, maybe into their twelfth year.

"Indeed. You would be--?" There was a strange, concealing aura about on of the girls, as if her heart were somehow blurred and unclear, but she dismissed it without too much concern. It was not malevolent, and she had enough to think about as it was.

"Family and friends of the Kariko and her father who lie here. I am…was Kaiyou's husband." Matsu replied. "We come to pay our humble respects."

"Ah, come then." Trust family to come once all the work had been completed.

Several sticks of odorous incense in hand, the hanyou scented a youkai as he drew nearer to the circle. Quickening his pace, he became merely a red and ivory blur of movement as he crashed into the clearing soon after.

"Youkai!" Sango hissed, hands straying to a giant boomerang at her side when he appeared.

"_Get him! Kill the youkai! Death to the mononoke!" Raised spears, drawn swords. Coils upon coils of deceit and hatred._

"Wait." Midoriko commanded, snatching the incense and starting it burning with a trained hand. "We do not need another grave to clean today. Please refrain from bloodshed."

The hanyou snorted, withdrawing from his battle stance, still glaring at Sango. Then he shifted his gaze to Mujina. "Tell your friend to be careful. Her companions are most likely who she'll have to kill someday. _Youkai._"

Mujina tensed. "He's crazy, Sango. Don't believe anything he says." She whispered, barely moving her lips. Sango nodded, annoyed, as if saying 'I know that already. I'm not stupid.'

"You just keep telling yourself that." The hanyou spat before retiring to sit at the foot of one of the trees NOT being used to mark a grave. Exactly what was it that this 'incense' was made out of? It stung his eyes and nose, infiltrating his delicate senses and instilling lethargic reactions in his bones. A drowsiness crept over him with a force he had never felt before. _Damn it all, I can barely move. _It was all he could do to remain upright, observing the scene through a hazy shade of autumn.

As the crows settled in the boughs of his tree, and the sun disappeared once more, the thick, saccharine reek of incense was beginning to fade and intermingle with the more inviting scent of dusk. The whole day, he had been at Kariko's grave, under strict orders from Midoriko, and so far there had been nothing that involved the need for him to be there.

"Midoriko-sama, did you know Kariko?" Sango asked, making the first bit of polite conversation he had been able to pick up in a while be heard.

"I was one of the miko in attendance for her wedding, and I buried her here."

"Thank you. I was also wondering…Why did no one inform us of her death?" Sango inquired.

"We…could not be sure that there was famly to bring news to." Midoriko answered weakly. "In these troubled times, we cannot afford to send out able bodies with the risk that it would be for naught."

It was HER job to traverse the lands and bring such ill news to relations. Her job that she hadn't done.

--

_Elsewhere_

_Sengoku Jidai_

"Midoriko-san! Word has come to us that a demon is in your care. Should this be true, do you realize what this means?" an old Shinto priest had uttered these words late one night when the moon hid so long ago.

"Oh, damn." Midoriko turned around and took a deep breath, brushing back loose hair from her face, hands resting at her temples for a moment before during back to the man.

"I beg your pardon, my lady. Excuse me?" the priest huffed, taken aback by her gruff speech.

"Ah-forgive me. I am very tired. Indeed, I am harboring a youkai in this shrine." It was better just to admit the truth than attempt to conceal something that was already not-so-secret.

"This goes against the duties of a miko, Midoriko-san." His tone was to matter of fact and to the point, she knew he had no personal arguments that went for or against her. Only a job that must be carried out.

"To care for the injured and aid the sick? Is that against our code?" Midoriko argued. Boy ever had she gotten herself into a mess this time.

"He is a youkai. He killed the villagers you were supposed to keep safe. And yet you wish to salvage this tainted spirit?" His voice rose in a gradual crescendo.

"There was nothing I could do to help them! They were long dead!" she shouted, rising to meet his challenge. However, her voice cracked in the middle, betraying her tears.

"Only because you let them die! Leave the youkai to perish, it matters not whether he lives or dies! You have a duty to your own people to fulfill, and that requires the extermination of all dangerous youkai in the vicinity!" Pushing past her violently, he entered the shrine, storming into the sleeping quarters. The stale air within was thick with the smell of sweat and blood, intermingling with the unmistakable reek of healing herbal poultices.

No youki though. "Midoriko-san, where have you hidden him?" he called back to her, knocking over fragile half-formed remedies and spilling painstakingly heated water on the surface of the treated planks.

"I-uh…" she stopped short, seeing for herself that there was indeed no youkai around. Only a young man with lengthy sweat-streaked hair as dark as the sky outdoors lying on a pile of faded tatami, rasping breathing filling the silence as his own feeble resistance fought to ward off the pain.

"You admitted to housing a demon. This man, certainly, is not of hell. Where is he?" his baffled tone mirrored Midoriko's own emotions.

A hanyou, then.

--

_Kariko's Grave_

_Sengoku Jidai_

"Midoriko-sama? What's wrong? You look pale, are you feeling well?" Mujina circled the kneeling priestess, who had a horror-stricken madness in her eyes.

"I-I'm well. Hey you, feeling better now?" the miko turned toward the hanyou. To her expectations, the cloud that had enveloped his keenly bright eyesight was lifting, and she could feel him visibly fighting to regain edge and the general awareness he had always possessed.

_A flash. A scream. The heat of fire, the chill of death. "Youkai, do you know who I am?" The flicker of that ruby sheen of blood upon a blade. A youkai's scent._

_Shit._ So that's who Kariko was. He shot up, fleeing from her grave. All this time, Midoriko had known. Their entire conversation. Of course she hadn't killed the youkai and avenged the dead bastards. If she had, he wouldn't be here.

Ignoring Midoriko's calls, he raced out of the fairy circle, making sure to at least go in the direction opposite the village. His body still felt uneasily heavy, each step like running through quicksand. The once familiar sylvan territory he had so long traversed was warped and twisted, all the scents were dispelled, replaced by a sudden uprising of sugary incense. His right shoulder grazed the trunk of a pine, just enough to catch him off guard.

He cried out, staggering to one side, only to fall into someone's stray crop of squash plants and down the ravine they playfully concealed. Lying in the frigid trickle of a winter rivulet, the unpleasantness of his position actually helped him regain full awareness of his surroundings.

"You can't run away from this forever." Midoriko's voice called from the edge as she slid down to help him up. "Just ask for the forgiveness of Sango-san and her father. They will bear no grudges. From what I hear, they were distant at best. They would have little to gain by demanding more of you."

The hanyou just lay there, spitting out the stagnant water that crept into his mouth.

"Alright then. Don't. Rot in hell for all I care!" she screamed, sobs racking her body. She had lost. Lost him, lost her dignity, lost everything. _Why am I crying? It's just some ungrateful youkai._ She tried to console herself, rather unsuccessfully. _Gods, I love him. Why do you have to take everything away? _She knelt beside him, quiet sniffling just barely audible above the gurgle of the water.

"You said you would go home after you prayed for the girl. Now do that." He pulled his drenched self out of the streambed, dragging Midoriko up by her arm. She looked up at him, confused. She opened her mouth to respond, but before she had the chance to speak, another shrill voice sounded above them.

"Midoriko-sama! Midoriko-sama!" A boy from Niwatori, haggard and out of breath.

"What's wrong, Koichi?" Midoriko pushed away from the youkai, scrambling up to meet the child.

A demon exterminator boy! He's come to the village, hurt bad! He won't tell me or the others nothing. The taijiya who passed by the village earlier are already waiting at the jinja. Come quickly!"

He sounded so terrfied, shaking visibly even as Midoriko gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and sprinted to her shrine without even a backward glance at her companion.

--

_Niwatori Village Shrine_

Sengoku Jidai 

"Kohaku!" Matsu rushed to the futon with an urgency Sango had not seen in a very long time. "Kohaku, what happened? Can you hear me? It's alright now…you're safe here." Matsu whispered, holding down the thrashing boy. "Where is the priestess?" he snarled, cradling his only male heir.

"Right here." Midoriko answered tersely as she crept through the shouji. It was still a mess from that morning. "Get back, taijiya-san. Leave this to me."

Extracting a dagger from her sleeve, she cut away the boy's kosode, bloody pieces falling away in tatters. "Where did you find him, Koichi?" Midoriko asked.

"On the southern border of the village." Koichi stuttered.

"He's been bit by a snake youkai." Midoriko confirmed, brushing her hands against the two large puncture wounds on his side. Purple networks of contaminated veins laved across his right side, the flesh around the bites growing pale and crusted.

"Kohaku, I'm here, don't worry." Sango collapsed onto his legs, crying. Mujina laid a comforting hand on Sango's back. She knew how much her brother meant to Matsu and Sango. If he died, there would be no one to take over as headman when Matsu's time ended. And it was more than a political matter. Siblings were the only things Sango could ever value more than her parents. In the Taiji village, your immediate family and fellow demon exterminators were the only things that truly mattered. Mujina had accepted that, painful though it was, she was only second in line.

"There's…nothing I can do." Midoriko admitted, the guilty nagging in her heart saying that twice she had led this family to fatality. Twice she had failed this man, this child.

"You lie! There must be something! Something…you can't just let him die!" Mujina cried.

"I'm sorry! I can't give you anything more! Some things can't be altered! There is nothing anyone can do to…help." Her roaring typhoon of anger gradually pittered off in a moment of self-realization. There was indeed one last thing she could do. There was indeed. Just as that ignorant idiot of a youkai had said, she could slay the demon to avenge the boy.

Looking straight into Matsu's eyes, she said, "I will slay the youkai who is taking your son's life. Farewell. I will be back as soon as possible to hold a ceremony for his body." As she turned, she could feel Matsu's unforgivingly cold glare boring into the back of her skull, as if it was she who inflicted such a wound, not who she sought to kill.

--

_In between_

Sengoku Jidai 

Despite the hanyou's lackluster attitude, in the end he ended up scouring the valleys south of Niwatori along with Midoriko. The valleys rose up into the mountain range that had housed the demon exterminators village for as many generations as anyone could name.

"So this damn youkai you're hunting," he prompted. "What is it?"

"Snake." Midoriko was a little surprised. Usually it was she who would start a conversation when he didn't want to partake in idle chatter. Now it was the other way around.

"So it could be some puny garden snake we've been searching for this whole time?" he barked at her relentlessly.

Midoriko clenched her fists. _If there was a time I wanted to belt him one, it's now. _"The kid's entire torso could fit in the thing's mouth! It's obviously not QUITE as small as a _garden snake." _She shot back. It was indeed one of the more powerful breeds of youkai, invested with poison fit to kill even a lesser demon in one bite, but it was still only a forest ghlim. It didn't have a human form from what she had derived, so it couldn't be particularly noteworthy. But in order to avenge the blood relatives of the Yakota family, it must be killed. Purified of its imbalanced values and done away with. She was the great priestess Midoriko; she had the holy power to do just what she wanted.

Trudging through the mud-caked paddies that had suffered too much rain and runoff from the peaks, she kept her sole focus on the alternate visions. She was going to find that youkai, even if she hunted it over the ends of the earth.

They had been marching for days on end, at a pace so grueling that even the hanyou was beginning to feel the protest in his joints, the painful excess stress that his leg muscles could not handle.

Then something caught his senses. Stumbling to an unseemly stop, knee deep in rank, marsh-like earth. "You feel that?" he asked Midoriko. The stench of decaying meat and acrid, burning youki of enormous strength. He looked over at her, covering his nose with the sleeve of his kariginu.

"Looks like this demon came to us, eh?" Midoriko drew her sword unnecessarily. It would do little more than serve as a stake to pin the snake down with. "You. Leave now. This is something I must do alone."

The hanyou nodded with an almost sincere smile. One thing he knew, the codes of vengeance were the same for every race: if you don't do it yourslef, it's not truly done.

Alighting on a nearby boulder, he bounded along the ridge and out of sight. The valley was too open to be to his liking, with no trees to help guard against predators. Besides, all his senses were tingling with anticipation as they caught some small fowl in their radar.

--

_Niwatori Coast_

_Sengoku Jidai_

Nearly a week had passed since the miko's leave, and Matsu had already creamated the body, for fear that it would rot before she returned. The shrine had tried to give him a fanciful china jar for Kohaku's ashes, as if in consolation for their incompetence. As if in having it Matsu would bear no ill will toward them. Bah.

Before setting out for home, he had wandered down to the beach in search of solace. Home. It was an empty word now. There was no wife to heat the evening meal, only Sango. No son to lavish affection upon, only Sango.

He was the pine, whose sappy amber had disintegrated, whose ocean had evaporated, leaving only the coral beneath its depths.

And yet, there was beauty to that coral. So many different styles and colors. Like brilliant morning glory in the gardens, small and sweet. Like a hidden razor blade ready for the kill. A daughter ready to be married in hopes of breeding a boy for an heir. A daughter with a warrior's spirit who could be the heir herself.

He breathed in deeply, intaking the slightly fishy scents and salty wind that stung his face. The icy waves pruned his tan feet, shriveling them as in reminder he would someday grow old.

"Chichi-ue?"

And there was that same voice that was the basis of his problems. And his happiness. He growled in recognition.

"Mujina says that Kirara will take us home now. Are you ready?" Sango shifted slightly, squishing the sand between her toes. The hem of her kosode was heavy with seawater, the light pink squares of color turned bright magenta.

"One moment. Then we can return to Taiji Village."

"Yes, chichi-ue" she made to leave, but her father caught her hand, gesturing for her to stay.

"Now that both your mother and Kohaku are gone, you are all I have. Someday, you might be alone in the world, and I don't want you to ever have to face that. Will you promise me that you will marry who I pick for you, to ensure proper care and affection for you and your children?"

"Y-yes, chichi-ue." Sango agreed, kicking at a stray piece of driftwood that ventured near. What was he asking this for? She was only a child still.

Producing a well-oiled bag that bulged with its contents, Matsu dipped his hand in. "These are Kohaku's ashes, Sango. Along with Kaiyou's. I have always kept them near." Spreading his fingers, the grainy substance fell from his hands and into the sea. "But now I realize that the past is not something to dwell on now. The present is for shaping the future, not trying to recreate what came before. You are my future, Sango. A combination of these two, you are a talented, upstanding warrior who yields to no one,"

Sango blushed at the praise. It was true, she was better than all the other children but…

"And a pleasant face to warm my days." Picking up the young girl as if she weighed nothing at all, he twirled her around, crystalline droplets flung off her clothing like tears of joy shed without crying.

--

_In between_

Sengoku Jidai 

The serpent, it turned out, was much larger than she could have ever believed, and it was not 'just a garden snake', to say the least. A juggernaut had stood before her, towering as literal sheets of youki washed off of it. A conglomerate of so many demons it was impossible to count. And, at the moment, she was at the less-pleasant end of it.

Heaving her sword out of its sheathe once more, she staggered a little at its weight, only mildly surprised at her own fatigue. Since forever it seemed she had fought off the macabre torrent of youkai, slashing at claws and heads and poison-spiked tails.

The youkai were tireless and so great in numbers, but there was only one of her, and she WAS tired. How much easier it would be to simply fall and be devoured…but no. Vengeance. Kill this demon. Raising her katana, she split an overconfident serpent in two, causing the two behind it to disperse rapidly. But there would be more.

When she had been tending to the hanyou, she had though that was as tiring as labor could go. With all the thrashing and mess he made, she had a pretty good notion of weakness. This, however, was in a class all its own. There was no sign of ending this onlsaught, and no way she could get to a vital section. Not if she couldn't get closer.

Suddenly, insectoid arms shot out of the middle, wrapping themselves around her. They had a prickly stickiness to them that made Midoriko shiver. Would it eat her now? But maybe this was the chance she needed. It was drawing her in, and if it intended to devour her, it would need to expose some part of it that was not designed for fighting. She smiled weakly. Maybe not.

--

_In the wilds_

Sengoku Jidai 

The pheasant was only a few meters away, flying for what she could and scrambling to escape; she knew she was being hunted. Not that is really mattered, because she knew also the hunter well. The hanyou of the forest, adept at fighting in the enclosed spaces of the woods. He who had killed and presumably feasted upon her family.

The hanyou smirked. He had closed the distance between him and his prey much quicker than usual, and would soon dine in leisure. What would he do after that, though_? Go back to Midoriko I suppose. It can't possibly take her more than what I gave her to slay a serpent, no matter how powerful. _He mused.

Finally, he could see his dinner. Leaping into a nearby tree, he lay silent for a moment. Watching with leering amber eyes, he could envision the pheasant's thoughts as easily as he could his own.

_Is he gone? Have I lost him? Am I safe?_

Her stature visibly relaxed, and she began pecking at the ground in a small sunny clearing a few footsteps away from his hiding spot. He growled in anticipation, as if calling, 'I'm still here' to the bird. Her head jerked up, plucking the bronze and chocolate feather she had been cleaning. A faint tint of blood filled the area as it trickled down from her wing.

Thinking better of stopping just yet, she took off once more. Flying just beneath the canopies of the great trees, she had forgotten in her fear-flight that it made it all the easier to track her from above.

Dancing through the boughs, a nigh invisible speck of feathers escaped, a much more noticeable, lithe blur of crimson and ivory flitted in and out of sight.

And then, in a fretful tousle it was all over. The pheasant's neck was broken, a flurry of feathers settling around the hanyou as he ate. He did not escape unscathed either, however. A deep scratch ran from just below his eye to his chin, inflicted upon him by vengeful fowl. The blood dripped downward, staining his hair and clothes a deep red.

After his feasting, he laid back in a tree with a content aura about him, trying not to let any uneasiness from Midoriko's fight interrupt this moment. That didn't last long. Moments later he was in flight once more, searching for the battle. It wasn't hard. The youki was overwhelmingly potent, and the largest mass of youkai he had ever seen came into view the second he left the forest and stared out at the valley from a rocky precipice. The thing that worried him, however, was the lack of anything to oppose it.

Where was she? _That bitch, she better not die and leave me here. _He gazed harder into the distance, gauging the amount of time it would take to clear it. He could almost hear a scream as he wasted precious instants, and took off from the cliff like a bullet, stirring the seeds of a flower and sending a great burst of pollen in to the air behind him.

--

_In between_

Sengoku Jidai 

Midoriko watched with a drunken sense of prediction as the youkai's fangs pierced her chest right between the bamboo plates. Blood splattered out, spraying her face and clothes. She watched. She knew she had to do something to fight back, but all that had propelled her for so long had gone. Her hanyou had not come back to her. He was all hers, and he did not come to avenge her.

Her thirst to avenge the Yakotas too had diminished. _Such a childish intention, vengeance. How futile. We all live and we all die. What does 'vengeance' gain us? _Then even through searing pain and dizziness from the rapid loss of blood, she realized something. That youkai…he was there. Trying to reach her, save her. She watched him dazedly slash a dozen or so serpents, beating them to a pulp when they still failed to die. Coming to save her.

With her last ounce of strength and will power, she focused on the four spirits residing in the labyrinth of this oni's twisted heart. They were all but balanced, making it very hard to adjust without changing the formulas too much. Too much valor, not enough mercy…and then it was done.

_Live, my hanyou. _She felt a great force tug at her breasts, wrenching free her very being, tossing it aside along with the demon's.

And then it was all gone, save for the thrumming of a shamisen, beckoning her to the world beyond hardships.

The hanyou, however, wasn't quite ready for her to step along that path. "Midoriko!" he shouted in anguish as the glowing jewel fell back down to the earth in her place beside him. He had never called her name before. It sounded clumsy against his lips, not doing her justice in the slightest. In his rage, he slammed his whole weight against the still, dead body of the demon. It served to gain nothing but the throbbing of his shoulder blade and the wind knocked out of his lungs, causing him to cough and sputter uncontrollably.

But he didn't cry. He never cried.

-end chapter four

--

More author's notes than anyone will ever need:

Cheery chapter, ne? A grave visit, a death, some angst, another death…never fear, things will start to look up in the near future!

As I'm sure most of you know, trying to get anything done on a holiday with relatives to please is nigh impossible. Therefore, chapter four is a tad late.

Ahem. The o-higan festival is real, which is celebrated in the spring and fall. It was put in mostly because I am really annoyed by the fact that in some fanfiction, the world revolves around the little band of 'heroes'. If they're in mourning, then the whole town is.

Therefore, of course, in my story, if Midoriko goes to pay respects to some brothel girl's grave, the rest of the town will be celebrating the autumn equinox.

I also decided it would be a good idea to include a SIMPLIFIED glossary of all the Japanese terms used frequently throughout this story.

Youkai: demon

Hanyou: half demon

Kosode: yukata-type thing that Sango wears

Shouji: rice paper screens

Jinja: Shinto shrine

Hakamairi: grave visit

Katana: sword

See ya, Kalliel


	5. Jealousy

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

--

Thanks

Moggy-I think that too. It makes A LOT of sense if you weight out the possibilities!

Dkorely-I HOPE it was long enough, 5, 916 words! I figured out I can't TYPE on any computer and keyboard that isn't my own…

horse-crazy-girl-it's okay. Stupid fanfiction dot net's fault completely. Thanks for the compliments everyone!

MeLaiya-I get lost too. How sad…

Kikyo-the-walnut-#1 beta reader…on Mars.

Thanks for the compliments everyone!

--

Disclaimer: There is a reason this is called fanfiction…

Sorry this is late—too much soccer, not enough time and/or will to write. Too much adrenaline too.

Excessive profanities in this chapter merely because, while it is not first-person, it is namely narrated by Inuyasha.

Mentionings of roosters and pheasants because I like fat, flight-impaired birds and they do actually have something to do with the plot. Kind of. Not really.

--

Beta read by Kikyo-the-walnut/Zora (Thank the gods. This thing was typo land before.)

--

Chapter 5: Jealousy

_Inuyasha_

_In between, Japan _

_Sengoku Jidai_

A gentle wind, a playful push. Whirling danger; a dance of infinite tapestries sewn together with silver moonbeams and deep sea musings. The whispering winds streaming past his ears told him she was gone. His own tawny vision told him she was gone.

But it was the plunge of his spirits that told him he KNEW she was gone.

Looking upwards, all that was visible of her remnants was her torso upwards, and even then there was a gaping hole that he could have fit both his fists through easily.

_Wasted arrogance. _He frowned, wiping a sheen of sweat and blood from his cheek. Of all the things he could have been doing while she died, he was killing a pheasant. A damn pheasant!

She had dropped her katana upon sealing the horde-youkai's soul, and it was now plunged tip-down in the swamp-like terrain. Grasping the hilt, he pulled it out, wiping the mud off with his sleeve. It was a nice sword; passably balanced and an edge kept as sharp as possible.

He could remember the winter evenings that she would sit near the fire pit, dragging the blade across a whetstone along a well-grooved path. Thinking back, he could actually recall the making of the weapon as well. They had gone to the slayer's village, of all places, walking uphill all day.

She was being too slow for him. Walking, examining…living. By the time they reached the village there was no doubt in his mind he'd trekked up and down the whole damn mountain at least three times. She kept telling him, "Slow down, slow down. Go too quickly and you'll run out your life prematurely."

But he was still here, and she was the one who died.

That 'Sango' girl… Had she been there when the sword was forged? Maybe. She was old enough at least to be a pup waddling at her mother's side then.

Slipping the katana into his obi, his hands brushed against an engraved blemish on the surface of the steel. "Kyuuriko", the sword was called, after the woman who created it; sent into the forge untold numbers of times, made from folding the steel over and over until there were no more air pockets and the sword was durable enough to take on the hide of a demon.

_Demons…_Absently he walked in a dreamlike march back to the shrine, wondering who would next become the miko to protect the village of calling roosters. Midoriko had never taken any apprentices—she was too self-confident for that. It almost wasn't fair that humans had to plan ahead in their lives, learn their trades, when youkai can dominate nearly any land, conquering on power and instinct alone. Almost unfair, but not quite.

At the snail-like place at which he was receding into more personal memories, he had also managed to cross into the woodlands he called home. Unless Midoriko asked him to share her home. Unless she 'insisted', as she put it. Kicking over the tributes to Kariko and her family half-heartedly, he silently wished the entire Yakota clan would rot in hell. _Midoriko wouldn't like that. _Damn, she was dead and she could still influence him. Chiding himself for petty sentimentality, he bent down and set the tiny bowls and offerings back onto the mounds of mulch, still fresh and shaded from change.

She was the only one who could push him around like that; of that he was sure. Why had he let her get away with so much?

Crossing under the torii, re was reminded of all too many such circumstances. Pushing him into the mud, kicking him down, subduing his rashest actions by merely looking strangely at him…

What the hell was he thinking? Only a youkai witch should have that much over him. Not a human priestess.

Friendship was something she had introduced. He found it a pleasing enough occupation, though damnable at times. And yet she had been acting so strange of late—something beyond the confinements of friendship.

Stalking through dusk's shadows, it wasn't really worth it to light the lamps Midoriko had advertised such an obsessive fetish with. So he revisited in darkness.

That morning now so long ago, Kariko's memorial, had held promise, cold autumn awareness sinking in on the world, with just enough unkown spice to invigorate certain needs. She had been angry with him just for sitting outside. If she would stop worrying about stupid things like that, maybe she could have had time to pursue her more wild ambitions, whatever they were.

Those were secrets she would never tell, though he thought that maybe one of them had broken through unexpectedly.

Of all the bizarre actions and pathways she had walked, in the span of ages he had known her, the one that morning was certainly the most eccentric yet. She had kissed him! Not any diviner in the land could have predicted such a display. She had loved him. That he knew now, like every little piece in a jigsaw puzzle had finally come together, and with that the final revelation. But did he return the feelings? It was a question he had never found the need to struggle with before. Yes, he did, his first thoughts told him. But deeper inside, locked within reserves of power and unswept corners of his mind, his heart said no. Not love. Only friendship. Not this 'love'.

It was then that it hit him how much he really missed her. Missed the fact that she would never yell at him again, never stare off in one of her serious-spells and utter her sage advice. Because she was taken away. By who? She had captured and presumably killed the youkai, so who was to blame for her absence? From the place that the truth of the depth of his affections for the miko came from, the same sentiments told him that placing the blame on anyone but on Midoriko herself or possibly him was foolish, but for the moment, he could ignore that. The most natural actions fell far below such upstanding morals.

_That fucking slayer kid. _He growled, clenching and unclenching his fists as he thought about the late Kohaku. He was the bastard who so inclined Midoriko to chase her death. He was gone now as well, but there was undoubtedly still family left to pay for his idiocy.

The hanyou crept out of the shrine—there was no sense in giving the miko a burial, her body was unreachable and he hadn't the slightest idea of how anyway. All that was left was vengeance. Cold, hard vengeance. He slammed open the shouji, hitting it hard against the support beams so that a rift cracked all the way down the frame. He cursed more strongly and freely than should probably have been allowed in a holy area, and threw his body at the screen, breaking through the fragile rice paper and rendering it incapacitated.

He stormed into the forest with a more brutal visage than he thought possible for a person in mourning.

The same winds that had brought some inkling of terrors within his heart were now inviting, lifting his shining tresses up off his sweat-lined neck and offering him a cooling sanctuary.

Gauging the distance between these woods—HIS woods—and the forest of pheasants, he could get to the Taiji Village by dawn. It had been a long week already—he hadn't truly slept since the day before Kariko's memorial. If Midoriko knew what he had been doing, he would have earned more than just a kick off the house.

_I was running then, Midoriko. Just like I'm going to do now. Running for me…and for you._

With that, there was nothing between him and the gods as his feet skimmed the shaded slivers of tree bark littering the ground, and spirits swam through the currents of air he created with the force of his sprint toward vengeance; remorse turned to fury.

--

Back at the shrine, two ujiko were awakened by the crash and shouting marking the hanyou's departure.

"What was that, you reckon?"

"The youkai already took the miko. Her hanyou 'pet' was surly enough to discern at least that. Scared the life ouuta me, stalking through the shadows like the obake."

"Probably wrecked the shrine. Think we could coax a fee out of him?"

"You can't get goods from those who have none."

"Point taken."

The two strange old men retreated to their beddings, but not before sneaking some more luxurious provisions out of the storehouse. There was no one to stop them now, after all.

Ah, 1530. A good year.

--

Nestled in one of the many dips and rises of the serene mountaintop, the forges of the Taiji Village lay dormant. The weapons, too, slept, while their masters rested in their beds of comfort.

A swirl of gray, rippling cloud-cover hovered over their domain, sending a light spatter of mist-like rain on their hills. The hours before dawn and work; a benevolent atmosphere that encouraged slumber and rejuvenation.

But Sango was not asleep. Nor was she comfortable. She was with Mujina, huddled in her red-sewn raingear and watching her friend 'create', as she so aptly put it.

Letting the rain drip down her slicked back hair, hands poised in a meditative gesture, Mujina's small form was enveloped in a strange light that seemed to shadow the surroundings instead of brighten them. Without warning, she broke her stance, letting the spell fall away in wisps, snaking over the fields and up into the boughs of the nearby woodlands.

"Mujina, what was that one?" Sango asked, trying to force some amount of feined curiosity into her voice. They had only just returned home from Kohaku's burial, yet the stupid girl wouldn't let her get some sleep! No, they had to be practicing charms and curses and whatnot.

"It's supposed to keep the weaker youkai away. See how it went to the fores? That means there's more of an aura in that direction than that of the village. Makes sense, huh?" Mujina smiled, brimming with pride. She patted the reeds that sheltered Sango good-naturedly, and said, "Just one more, 'kay?"

"That means there's a youkai in the forest. A strong one." Sango stated, ignoring the last part Mujina had said.

"There always are. I'll bet you're scared 'cause it's dark and all. I mean, you already insisted in wearing you uniform, "Mujina reassured her, pointing at the black catsuit Sango wore.

"Only the kitsune and tanuki. If there was no central threat, it should have dispersed evenly; not all the tendrils should have gone to one part of the woods."

Mujina's eyes widened, evident that she hadn't realized that. "You're a good taijiya, Sango. Better even than your father."

"You know how to make a profession sound very ludicrous, Mujina." Sango smiled. "You've never even see chichi-ue fight. That's where true taijiya pride themselves."

"Well I-uh…I guess not." Mujina stuttered, turning back to the task at hand. "In any case, my spell should deter and further progression. I wanna do one more ward."

"You need more practice on the last one. Just not right now," Sango commented wryly. "Because there's our demon."

And Sango was right. At the edge of the forest, a thicker shadow loomed, discernable only in shades of gray and hues of black. It was smaller than Sango had envisioned, though much larger than a forest creature.

The young taijiya threw off her gear, loosening her sword in its sheathe and grabbing the sturdy leather straps of her most prominent weapon, the boomerang forged of youkai hide and skeletons.

"Mujina."

"What." It was uncomfortable when Sango went from her obliging, childish companion to a taijiya with a duty—like they had suddenly switched roles.

"Go back to the village, but don't tell anyone I'm here. I want to do this by myself." The youkai was coming closer, trampling the tall grasses in a bloodlust manner, its intent obviously the Taiji Village.

Nodding, Mujina scrambled up the hill to the village, slippery with dew and freshly stewed mud. Grabbing at the tall weeds for support, she sunk low into the field in a clearing that overlooked the forest. No way was she going to run away. Merely…avoid being seen.

--

"You're the demon who was with Midoriko-sama! Why did she not return? What did you do with her?" Sango shouted at the youkai, closing in on her immobile prey.

He tensed, but stayed silent.

Circling him, sword drawn, she kept her eyes on his hands. He had a sword and…claws. _Make sure to realize you opponent's advantages. Prepare yourself for countering them. _Her father's words echoed through her head. All was quiet for a moment, with only the crunch of wilted grass beneath her boots ensuring that she had not gone deaf.

Then she struck out low at his legs. He answered her offensive with a dive, catching the place behind her knees, causing her to fall over. Flipping back upright she slashed vertically, but the hanyou caught her and threw her back a few yards.

Sango let out a grunt as she made impact with the ground, but easily rolled to a standing position once more. Grabbing her boomerang from its hidden location in the reeds, she arched her back and threw her weight forward, letting it loose gracefully.

"Hiraikotsu!" she shouted as the projectile whizzed past, hacking the tops off of some unsuspecting dandelions.

The hanyou's eyes widened in surprise as he dove to the ground to avoid the attack. _Damn, I forgot about that. _Just seconds too quick for him, Sango's weapon slammed into his shins as his hands touched earth, sending him flying off in a different direction than he originally intended, slamming his body into a tree on the outer rim of the forest.

With a groan, the hanyou slid down, lying still at the foot of the growth. Sango jogged over, blade in hand. Kneeling down to inspect the body, she drew back her sword to spear his heart. "Burn in hell, fiend." She whispered fiercely, only to be met by a similar retort and eyes that did, indeed, seem to blaze with the fires of hell. He spun and kicked her down, at the same time grabbing the Hiraikotsu and formlessly throwing it deeper into the woods.

Drawing out Kyuuriko, he cut in with an upwards-diagonal slash, met by the bone-jarring clang of steel against steel as Sango responded with a defensive parry. Shifting the weight to her back foot, Sango jumped backwards and lunged. Her opponent easily dodged and attempted to slash at her side, but the taijiya swerved to avoid it.

From the hillside, Mujina watched, shining steel glistening in the feeble morning sunlight and the ever-strengthening rain that had begun to grace them with a torrential downpour. Silently, Mujina cheered her friend on. _C'mon, Sango. Slice him to pieces. Punch his guts out._

Their dance came to a halt as they locked close together in a stalemate. Neither, however, was willing to break it for fear the other would think he or she had given in.

Sango's eyes wandered to the demon's sword. It was much like her own wakizashi…Gasping as she read the maker's seal. "How did you get a hold of one of my mother's pieces? She would never forge one for the likes of youkai!"

_Ah, so she's Kyuuriko's daughter. Come to think of it, they do look alike. This'll prove entertaining. _"Your mother, eh? Kyuuriko Kaiyou was much prettier than the Kyuuriko Sango, you know that? Kyuuriko Kaiyou's daughter is more manly along the shoulders and…thighs."

"And how would you know, hanyou? Were you INSPECTING me?" she shot back. She didn't know why such a comment infuriated her so. Maybe it was because it was from HIM. "You're not much of a prize yourself, girly."

"Look who's talking, you pervert." The hanyou leapt up, somersaulting through the air to land in a tree.

"Take it as you will," Sango retorted.

"Look, I don't want to get too close to someone like you, so let's make this a long-range battle."

"I have the same sentiments."

And so their battle arena expanded into the forest. The hanyou took to the trees, weaving through the sky above Sango like a needle through silk. Grasping the weapon known as 'flying bones', Sango sprinted through the outer rim of the woods, gaining momentum for her swing. Letting loose Hiraikotsu like a wave throwing a piece of lumber, it tore through moss-covered floor and sapling alike, cleaving a nesting pheasant in two as it spun with strength much more than Sango alone could supply.

The youkai looked back as the boomerang approached him, ever so steadily gaining. Ironically, even as he turned leave its path, the weapon also began to swerve in the same direction, coming around to return it to its wielder and complete the parabola. He couldn't go the other direction—the trees stopped.

She had him. Like a trapped child about to be devoured by oni, she had him. Smiling in premature victory, she stood her ground. Five, four, three…seconds until her 'baby' came back to her… Then, in a flash of movement, something tackled her to the ground, the quickening Hiraikotsu flying over both of them and driving an edge low into the slushy fields. In a tangle of limbs and swords and angry insults, the hanyou and taijiya fell hard onto the ground, Sango pinned beneath the former.

"Damn you, you…you idiot!" she growled.

"Am I an idiot for saving my own hide?" the hanyou shouted back, pushing himself off of her with more force than was necessary.

Sango responded only with a swift roundhouse kick as she rolled to her feet, catching him off guard.

He swerved to the side, barely dodging, answering her blow with his own offensive.

Sango blocked, turning the defensive postion into a well-executed vertical cross chop. He met it with a rogue punch to her shoulder, breaking through her diminishing barriers of defense. She winced, then, attempting to recover, launched yet another flurry of hard-hitting strikes to the ribs. The hanyou leapt out of the way of the onslaught, drawing distance between them once more.

Pushing off from the base of a nearby tree, in the same instant he propelled his body forward yet again, claws outstretched.

Sango cringed, shielding her head with her arms admitting defeat.

As the razor-sharp scythes ripped through the tender flesh of her forearm and scarlet raindrops splattered her vision, all she could think of was her mother and Kohaku; how happy they must be that she was joining them. Then, as her head tipped back and she felt the true hatred of a demon pouring forth, drawing crimson lines of fire against the pallid flesh of her stomach, she saw a golden bird flit from the Taiji Village to the forest.

Collapsing as her own blood flowed freely onto her lap and dribbled down her boots, the hanyou came after her again for the final strike.

_The naïve fool. If he was looking for revenge, he won't find it here. _Sango bit her lip in concentration as she fumbled for her last means of salvation…ah, there is was. Soft and fragrant in her hands.

"Retribution for your brother leading Midoriko to her death, bitch," he snarled, merely a blot of darkness as the bird of riches spread behind his form.

When Sango didn't answer, he turned back to the forest. He would kill every last taijiya bastard in due time.

"I won't…die at the hands of a…" The hanyou swiveled to face her once more. Not dead yet, then.

"…the hands of a…half-breed!" The taijiya tossed a filmy gray mixture at the silhouette of shadow, its outline wavering with the poison and scalding brightness.

Her adversary retched, clutching his middle. The toxin burned his lungs, as if intent on dissolving them. He blinked dazedly as the concoction stung his eyes and his vision even more impaired by water as the rain continued to pour down.

Sango sighed, slipping further away as the rain drummed an incessant melody to which her heart strained to beat in tandem to.

"Sango!" Mujina cried once more. Had she called before, though? The taijiya couldn't tell, but she could hear her voice now, and that was all that mattered. "Do you know I'm here…?" Mujina wiped some flecks of blood from Sango's face, brushing back stray strands of hair that had escaped from her ponytail.

_Yes, Mujina. Where has the golden pheasant gone? _She answered, unaware that she had only thought and not spoken the words.

"Damn you damn you damn you!" Mujina screamed at the stationary half demon, who was still fighting to recover from the poison. "You bastard!" she had never been truly frightened in her life before this—but if Sango was gone, there was no one. Nothing. All was insignificant. Leaving Sango's side for a moment, Mujina sprang up and kicked him hard in the ribs. He flinched, and didn't retaliate. Again and again, until Mujina fell into the mud, exhausted and emotionally drained. "Damn you to hell and back," she choked out, tears lacing through paths already created by the rain.

--

_Elsewhere_

_Sengoku Jidai_

Sango could see the caramel feathers of the great bird again. Not the mirage-like haze from before, but in painted detail, every uneven end and prim plume on its bronze wings arched in flight.

Surprisingly, she found herself on its back, gliding through honey-soaked muscles rippling as its wings pumped through the skies beneath her touch. The air, too, was sweeter, though it held undercurrents of dampness and blood.

"Where are you taking me?" Sango asked, a tremor riding through her tone as she realized she was naked.

The bird was silent, merely tilting downwards, beginning their descent though the water-laden clouds below. The young girl was overwhelmed by smells of immense cleanliness, puffs of fluff forking past them and drenching her skin with moisture, ribbons of white clinging to her skin.

And then her world cracked in half.

Searing whitefire eclipsed her mount, grinding pain pulsing through her body and mind. A peculiar sensation permeated her being; they were falling. Rushing rivulets of memory came back in brief snatches as she and myriad sources of power in the form of feathers cascaded past them.

Peering across the imagery of recollections, she saw darkness and blood below. Thrusting her gaze upward for reassurance, only a stinging miasma raining down on her, dissolving the feathers and indenting pockmarks into her skin, met her. Below, the ground of boiling lava and spouting blood loomed ever nearer.

Sango screamed.

--

Taiji Village 

_Sengoku Jidai_

"Is Sango-sama feeling well?" A voice sounded from outside.

"She is not taking visitors, well-wishers, solicitors, mourners, mates, relatives, prosecutors, interrogators, or interviewers at this time," was the curt reply.

_Mujina? _Sango was inexplicably confused. She was in her home, thick strips of coarse cloth bound around her right arm and torso. She tried to sit up experimentally, before falling back on her futon as a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over her.

A shadow crossed over her face before a soft thump signified kosode meeting wooden floor. "Are you awake?" A female voice whispered timidly.

"Un," Sango answered. "What happened to the golden pheasant?"

"It was a crane." Mujina corrected automatically, an air of annoyance heating the statement.

"You saw it too?" Sango fingered an edge of the blanket draped over her otherwise bare body. Shivering, she sighed.

"Ah-no! I mean…uh…are you cold?" Mujina adjusted her position uncomfortably before rising to fetch another quilt.

Sango brushed a damp lock of ebony locks from her forehead, hot with fever and dripping with perspiration. The chill breeze sneaking under the shouji helped clear her mind. The hanyou…her defeat. She almost cried at the memory. She lost to a-a…an idiot.

"Sango…" another blanket plopped onto her body as Mujina returned. "Forgive me."

"For what? What happened back there…was my fault. For being so stupid! Stupid!" Sango's words caught in her throat before she could finish and tapered off in a quiet sob. Drawing the blankets over her head, she continued to sniffle, repeating over and over, "I'll beat him, I'll kill him, I'll beat him, I'll kill him…"

"And so you shall, my friend," Mujina soothed, blinking back her own tears. "I shall see to that."

-end chapter five

--

More author's notes than anyone will ever need:

This is the first recorded chapter of Ascension in which Inuyasha and Sango intermingle with each other. Such a…uh…ROMANTIC start, ne?

Please tell me if the part where Sango andInuy-…erm…THE Hanyou were fighting was passable. Its my first shot at any actual battle- whamming things with the goddamn Tetsusaiga or just brainless brawl scenes excluded-so I would like to know if it was good and what I could work on.

Definition of Place, Objects and Time:

Kyuuriko: (the sword) Cucumber Girl. A silent tribute to kikyo-the-walnut, I guess. Cucumbersyummy!

Torii: the gate thingys at Shinto shrines. (You know…the ones that appear in Inuyasha so often. They're usually red.)

Sengoku Jidai: Warring States Period (Kamakura Shogunate, I THINK. This is from memory, so…yeah. Don't bother correcting this if it's wrong.

Niwatori Village: Rooster Village (only later did I realize there was a Yu Gi Oh card called Niwatori. –sigh- This is why I keep mentioning roosters…yeah

Taiji Village: Slaying Village. Somewhat.

In between: not Japanese, but it needs defining. "in a kind of inhabited place like a field near a village somewhat" is more like it, but doesn't sound nearly as cryptic

Elsewhere: It WAS "in the past" which made me less confusing of a person, but Zora made me change it…-grumble-

In the Wilds: almost the same thing as 'in between' but refers to more of a mountain area, or forest. Places that are…wild.

See ya, Kalliel


	6. Dreamer

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

--

Moggy-Thank you for the compliments! HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

horse-crazy-girl-Whee, I feel so loved. –sings- Compliments!

Kikyo-the-walnut-#1 beta reader…on PLUTO.

Kiyana Va Sala: My heart goes out to you. I am well aware of ficbitches anonymous and their dislikes, though I don't try very hard to conform to all their rules. Though people can't be cheering Sango on to her timely victory, because she lost… I ASSURE you, regardless of whether it's Sesshoumaru or not, no one is going to be the sexual slave of anyone, least of all the AUTHOR. (I hate Mary Sues. Graaayggg.)

And Inuyasha is NOT going to chase after Sango EVER EVER EVER. (Despite what it may seem like by the end of this chapter. I swear it will not happen.) That is just…WRONG.

Thanks for the compliments everyone!

--

Disclaimer: There is a reason this is called fanfiction…

Sorry this is late—AGAIN—But I went to another soccer tournament, far, far away from where I live, so…I apologize. I got a yellow card. Whoo! (No one knows what I'm talking about…)

Personally, I was not at all pleased with this chapter in any way whatsoever. It was undesricptive, pointless, and overall hard to write. I wanted to redo it, but it was already late (by what, A WEEK?) and I am beginning to tightrope on my last strings of patience with this story. If you guys weren't there for me, I probably wouldn't have the will to keep writing this. So again, thanks you guys, especially horse-crazy-gurl and moggy, who've been here since the very beginning. If you have any suggestions on how to overlook those kinds of problems in the future, please do tell me in a review.

--

Beta read by Kikyo-the-walnut/Zora

--

Chapter 6: Dreamer

_In the Wilds _

_Sengoku Jidai_

The hanyou coughed, shaking droplets of condensation from his hair in frustration. True, he had won his little skirmish with the slayer boy's sister, but what was it really worth? The feeling of vengeance had passed and vanished into nothingness. He only wished the rain would do the same. With merely the paltry shelter of the thin young boughs high in the canopy, he was decidedly—and unforgivably—wet.

His hakama and kariginu had changed from an eye-catching bright crimson to a dull, muddy hue, color bleeding into earth-drenched muddle. Despite it being an ideal locale for feeding, fowl was scarce now, choosing to hide themselves from the dreary weather as well has his own person. Undoubtedly, every small meal in the vicinity had been notified of his existence, and thus would be wary of any predator in need of a snack.

The exterminating wench's poisons were irritating enough as well, though it had long since worn off.

Sango. That was her name, wasn't it? The rain wasn't her fault. Midoriko wasn't her fault. His inability to stave off a petty taijiya concoction wasn't her fault. But he could pretend it was.

He leaned back, pressing his head into the mushy wetness of the wood. Heavy droplets splashed onto his upturned face as a crow took flight, rattling the branches of its roost.

"Fuck this." He rolled over, dropping to the forest floor on all fours with a muted thud. Standing up and wiping the gritty mud from his hands on the sleeves of his coat, he preceded to wander.

_Yeah, that's right. Walk around and admire nature like a fucking invalid. _Big Brother and Midoriko were rubbing off on him. The only upside was that he wasn't admiring anything, so he couldn't be too far gone.

Murky dips filled with standing water splashed over as he stomped through, holding any possible consequences at a complete disregard. At least the rain was beginning to let up, vicious pounding in his head lessening to a nigh-undetectable drizzle.

Everything smelled wet. It was all the same, dreary scent. It kind of reminded him a grave-soil.

It was nearing the time to move elsewhere.

--

Taiji Village 

_Sengoku Jidai_

"Kagome! Kagome! Kago no naka no tori wa," A ring of small children chorused. "Itsu itsu deyaru!"

One small girl sat in the middle, head buried in her kosode.

"Yoake to banni! Tsuru to kamega subeta!" The group continued to dance and sing, kicking up dust with their sandals that carried over to Sango and Mujina.

The circular procession came to a stand-still.

The girl in the center stood up, eyes screwed tight. There was a momentary pause, filled with nervous shifting and playful giggles. "I…forgot what comes next."

Her peers only laughed harder, pointing fingers and taunting good-naturedly.

"Who do you think is the person behind you, Keri?" Mujina prompted helpfully.

"Uh...Sora?" She opened her eyes. Sora was standing to her side.

"No, it was Ayu!" Sora corrected. "You have to stay in the middle! Keri has to guess again!"

Keri frowned, before brightening as Mujina winked at her.

"Let me play, please." The small group nodded, stepping back to let her join their ranks. They skipped this time, shrill, high voices accompanying Mujina's more subdued tones.

A thin smile played across Sango's lips as the song ended once more, placing Mujina behind Keri. It was an easy guess and soon Mujina was kneeling in the center, eyes closed.

It looked like fun. But there was a displacing feeling in her gut. What about Kohaku? And she still had to prove that that youkai was no better than she. That only luck had contributed to his victory. It maddened her how her mind wouldn't let it go so that she could just forget about that section of her career. But if it was the only way to set her heart at ease, she would have to end it quickly and at a timely date. Today wasn't a bad day to settle the score.

Leaving Mujina and the village children to their games, she rose slowly, and strolled over to the village walls. Casting a nonchalant gaze behind her before scuttling out of the safe haven, she stealthily ran along the edge, unwrapping her furoshiki as she went.

When she was a far enough distance from the outposts, she dropped the bundle, quickly stripping off her kosode to reveal the matte black catsuit beneath. Binding her marbleized coral-patterend armor to her shoulders and knees, she fitted the final piece, holding it in place with her red obi.

Slipping on her boots, Sango fingered the hilt of her wakizashi. She couldn't easily disappear from village duties with her boomerang, so it was all she had.

Drawing a thin piece of corded fabric out of a concealed pocket, she finger-combed her thick brown hair into a high ponytail.

_He wouldn't have gone far. _She reasoned. No, he certainly wasn't the type to leave a job half finished. Not in the least. He would be wanting to kill her and her father still, so he couldn't just up and leave.

"I thought you'd be back," came the slightly irritating welcome from the trees.

Sango groaned. Why did he have to be the one to sneak up on her? She was hoping it would be the other way around.

"The question is, why would you bother? What did you gain in our last match, huh?"

Sango scowled up at the trees, not exactly sure where his exact location was. "In truth," she paused, drawing out her answer, eyes still sweeping the canopy for his presence. "It was a bit embarrassing…"

The hanyou snickered bitterly in contempt.

"…Thus I've come to repay my debts."

"So I see. Damn, you're a strange one." Then again, everyone he seemed to meet was. "Do the taiji folk really hold such long-term grudges? It's been, what, two weeks already? 'Cause I don't feel like ripping out YOUR appendages right now. It'd be a pity if you wanted to do something like that to me." It was really ticking her off, he could tell. Just a little longer playing this game…

"You're such an idiot." Sango glowered, folding her arms across her chest crossly.

"The second time just about took the edge off of the 'idiot' thing. Since fools die, but I'm not dead, I must be doing something right." He dropped down from a tree directly in Sango's line of vision, smirking.

"You don't truly think like that. No youkai would. No, you CAN'T think like that. And if you have no qualms with me anymore, then you shouldn't have had one to begin with. Not a great enough cause, then."

Snap. "You don't know anything about my reasons. Just fuck off before I feel like killing you again."

"Ah, I see I've hit a tender nerve." Sango grinned evilly, falling in to his game fluidly. "So what happened that so inclined you to attempt fighting a professional demon slayer?"

The hanyou laughed at her statement. "Professional now, are we? You're no more than some bratty kid."

"Neither are you. You can't be very old, even for a youkai. Or are you just beating up on little girls because you can't bring home a victory in your own class?"

_Damn. So much for trying to play with things of the upper class. Keh. Back to the old strategy—tried and true. But I don't want to. What a waste. I'd rather eat rats and shit than kill time here. _He jumped back into the tree, shaking a handful of auburn and amber leaves down, crowning Sango's peering face with a queenly glow. Then it was gone.

"Don't think you're going to run away." Sango started, jerking her boots out of the mud that she had begun to sink into.

_Where in the hells does she come to these strange conclusions? _"I wouldn't dream of it." He didn't come back down, though, choosing only to break off a branch above his head and throw it down at Sango.

She stepped out of the way, taking it as a warning rather than an actual attack. If he wasn't going to make the first move, then she would have to.

Unlatching a clip and pulling out what was undoubtedly one of many concealed items, she proceeded to untie the silken drawstrings, knotted together by her mother so long ago. Sango had never thought she would ever find a need for the mochi-seeds in her career—apparently she was proven wrong yet again.

The hanyou watched her with half-closed eyes as she hiked out of his range. Good riddance.

He wasn't completely surprised, however, when she suddenly whirled around, running toward him and his tree like an incapacitated duck—strictly his own perception, but it was close enough.

Throwing down some foul-smelling seed, she pushed off the ground. The seeds transformed into giant mochi, propelling her up into the foliage to face him.

"…The hell?" He somersaulted backwards, dodging a sudden upward motion of her sword as she wordlessly assumed the roll of assassin.

Climbing upward into the highest reaches of the canopy, Sango began to warm to the new battlefield. You couldn't grow lackluster and careless when there was no ground beneath your feet. It reminded her slightly of the odori dancing a daughter of a visiting merchant had tried in vain to instruct her in, only much more fast-paced. There was a flicker of precision and form in both. Suddenly wishing she had managed to bring Hiraikotsu in her hunt, she watched as her target moved further and further out of sight, swerving, ducking, or bulldozing whatever interfered in his course through the woods.

_This calls for a change of strategy. Instead of youkai versus taijiya, how about…trickery?_

Sango dropped from her perch, screaming as he hit the mud below. Reducing her cried to low moans of feigned pain, she lay in wait for certain unsuspecting individuals. From what she had gathered, if he thought she had slipped in her pursuit of him, he wouldn't hesitate to come and gloat.

"I'm not as stupid as you make me out to be." Casually, he leaned against the very same tree their chase had originated at. With their stampeding around in circles the whole time, it was a wonder there were still trees there. "Only a truly great fool would fall for a trick like that."

"Yet here you are, 'falling for it'." Sango reorted.

"Got nothing better to do."

"Be careful with your leisure time. You never know," Sango paused, heaving herself out of the mud. "It might suddenly SHRED on you!"

"Damn, that was a bad pun," the hanyou sighed, ducking under her swing indolently.

She answered with a swift kick to his shoulder, catching him off guard. Grimacing a little, he tried not to hypothesize how she managed to get her foot up that high.

Looping under her next slash, he chidingly struck her throat, just light enough so only a silk-thread's width cut was formed, bright red blood beading at its edge.

However noncommittal his attack, it served only to coax Sango into a wilder frenzy of anger-driven stabs and swordplay.

What happened the next instant only the gods could be sure of, though they too could have missed it. In any case, somehow the youkai ended up on the ground, backed up against a decomposing stump, sword tip pointed directly at his throat, centimeters away from touching the skin.

Sango looked down at him, eyes betraying no hidden notions of mercy, ready to slit that which was most unguarded at a moment's thought.

The hanyou looked up at her with a 'go ahead and kill me. Like I'll care' leer, staring at his soon-to-be-executioner.

"I can kill you now and it would all be over." Sango stated, gaze unwavering.

"Really now." _So what. I don't care. Nothing to live for. Nothing to lose. Maybe. I think. Maybe not. _"I'm waiting."

_It's not a victory. _From somewhere deep in Sango's head, a contradictory statement. _ He beat you once. You're not any better than him, only just breaking even. You're not superior in any way._

She withdrew her sword, relazing her guard and, wiping moisture off the blade, re-sheathed it.

The hanyou didn't move, regarding the taijiya with a skeptical countenance. After a few moments, though, he scraped up along the rough contours of the tree trunk, stripping small curlicues of bark off and entangling the bits in his hair carelessly.

"Another victory is needed for my mind to be at peace. I can kill you whenever I want, so there's no sense rushing it."

He eyed her quizzically, before taking to the air, muttering something along the lines of, "Crazy bitch."

Sighing, Sango trudged through the mud and grime and back up through the fields, wet grass scrubbing her boots clean, and retreated back to the village.

I can't believe I— 

_Of all the…_

_Why did I let him live?_

Half formed questions of anger and confusion soared through her head, before she heard Mujina frantically calling her name. It must be time to cook the evening meal already.

--

Elsewhere Sengoku Jidai 

_Don't be a dreamer._

_Don't be a follower._

_Don't be a cause of death._

Cool, fine-boned hands lifted a raw umber hued hood from the figure before tracing its fingertips along a web of fine tuned destinies. She could control the spirits, bend their will to her wishes. Which would be next?

One spirit from her previous performance lingered still, flailing against her. It's partner had returned to the land of living, but this one would prove useful for one last assignment. A golden crane, delicately arched wings thrashing defiantly.

"Don't be a dreamer, my sweet." Calming the bird with gentle caresses, a vision passed over the web. A young man—youkai—was next to fall into her game. Her livelihood. Her purpose.

"A fun one, then." She giggled, unseeing eyes dancing with glee.

-end chapter six

--

Stupid ending rambles:

I am aware that mochi does not grow on a plant and therefore cannot have seeds. However, the mochitsuki is tomorrow and I'm really excited! So many mentionings of mochi is owed solely to that festival (mark your calendars, people!)

As I said earlier, my last threads of patience with Ascension are wearing awfully thin…so here is a bonus section (hopefully better than this chapter. Again, I apologize for it's tardiness and patheticness.) Say hello to…

**Super Special #1: DECENSION of the Spirit!**

Things that Zora had to cut out of Ascension…together in one place!

Chapter one Coral Daughter: n/a 

**Chapter 2 Pariah:** when Inuyasha is confronting the stupid villagers…

"It speaks!"

"I'm a guy. Not an 'it'."

Zora's reason: Dude. This is not supposed to be a humor chapter.

**Chapter 3 Ritual Living: **

1. Sango and Mujina are cooking dinner…

"Suddenly, Lewis and Clark popped out from behind a hydrangea bush!"

Zora's reason: Lewis and Clark?

Midoriko is trashing the shouji…

"Suddenly, Lewis and Clark popped out from behind a hydrangea bush and pelted Midoriko with a baker's dozen fluffy, poofy doughnuts."

Zora's reason: Uh…Lewis and Clark again? DOUGHNUTS?

**Chapter 4 Childish Intentions:** At Kariko's grave…

"Sudden;y, Lewis and Clark popped out from behind a hydrangea bush and started doing the chicken dance with Kariko!"

Zora's reason: Kariko is dead. And NO MORE LEWIS AND CLARK!

**Chapter 5 Jealousy:** n/a

**Chapter 6 Dreamer:**

Just random…

" 'Wha ha ha! I have a switch blade' Then Kagome brutally murdered Sango and ran off yelling about her switch blade."

More switch blades…

Switching to a more blade-like story of a switch blade, Sango withdrew her sharp pointy thing.

Section Kalliel was seriously thinking of including before Zora stopped her…(comes right before the mystery person and their web thing)

"The other, however, only circled the forest of pheasants over and over again, each time finding a different path to try. It must have been the seventh time when, all of the sudden, a voice chimed, "What are you doing, mister?"

The youkai jerked in surprise, losing his momentum and crashing into the ground.

"Now what are you doing?" A small yellow bird popped out of a glade and, hopping onto the youkai's head, peered at him with darl, beady eyes.

"…The hell?" He sat upright abruptly, catapulting the fowl into the air.

"Hey! The thing, whatever it was, scampered back and jumped up, pecking him on the head.

"Get away from me." He effortlessly hurled the small animal across the forest.

the following segment I had originally planned to be cut in the first place 

"You're mean, dude!"

"Dude?"

"Duude."

"DUDE?!

"DUUUUUUUDE."

"Oh am I? Maybe I want to know why some pheasant in the middle of nowhere can talk."

"I'm youkai, stupid."

"Stupid, now?"

"STUUUUUUUUUUPID."

"Macaroons!"

end obviously cut scene 

"Some mysteries are better left unsaid."

"Who are you quoting from now?"

"My friends, Noru and Jaki! By the way, I'm Tora."

"You can't be serious." The hanyou groaned, massaging his temples with his hand (Zora was probably doing that too about now )

Tora twittered on and on, drawing tens upon tens of birds to flock around them. Once or twice, they all broke into a ringing, cawing chorus, clawing at him from all sides.

"So whaddaya want from me?" Anything. ANYTHING to get out of here.

Tora grinned, however a bird can, and cooed plottingly, "See there's a girl. We want her dead."

the rest was cut due to possibility of confusing readers that this might actually be in the story 

Zora's reason: What do you think my reason is? Holy shit. He's being manipulated by fat, lumpy chickens? LOTS OF FAT LUMPY CHICKENS? They look like dumplings.

And there you have it, folks. See you in Chapter 7, hopefully by Thursday. It's called 'Asagao'!

Jaa

Kalliel


	7. Asagao

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

--

Kikyo-the-Walnut: I'll Lysol you, I'll Lysol you good…lol.

Horse-crazy-gurl: Take all the time you need—I'll be waiting for the next chapter of 'Mortal Enemies'!

Saphire-eyes91: You don't give yourself enough credit. Have fun munching!

SpikeSmeagleSparklies: Thanks?

Sweet-thing-88: The SPECIAL REVIEWER AWARD is given to her! She reviewed Ascension while I was writing chapter 7, and gave me the inspirational push I needed! Thanks! Hugs and kisses in your general direction.

Thanks for the compliments everyone! Will you be next to win the Special Reviewer Award? Tune in next time!

--

Disclaimer: There is a reason this is called fanfiction…

Preliminary notes: Beware of the time break of gigantic proportions between chapter 6 and this one. It is implied that four years have passed. Meaning? Sango has matured into a young woman of sixteen and Inuyasha…damn. He's the same. (Appears about 15 in this story.)

And so Ascension of the Spirit takes on a slightly romantic turn…hopefully.

--

Beta read by Kikyo-the-walnut/Zora

--

Chapter 7: _Asagao_

_Taiji Village _

_Sengoku Jidai_

Sango yawned, stretching her arms out in the hazy midmorning air. The muscles lining her inner arm and sides smarted, but she continued, welcoming the pain. It felt good to know that her body recognized all her hard work these past few days. Finally, a day of rest had been granted to her. The summer had been not only unusually sticky and humid for this region, but also wonderful weather for breeding insectoid youkai from the vernal pools common in the area.

It had been a long time since she had enjoyed any true freedom, save for the momentary down time between each call to work. Ever since her sixteenth anniversary of birth, her meager lifestyle had taken on more angles than she would have originally thought possible. She and Mujina, though still close friends, no longer gossiped nor played in the streets. In fact, it was rare that they caught sight of each other. Sango had gone on in the art of demon slaying, and Mujina had apprenticed herself to the old herbalist and midwife, Riie. Those paths were not destined to cross frequently. Her duty was to the youkai, and Mujina's was to the sick and frail. Today was almost no different.

If she could beat that damned hanyou again today, as she had the previous month, she could finally claim victory and end this droning battle with him. It had to be today; that or unfathomable shame.

Of course, she had told herself that each month after the victory before, and had always managed to lose. She and Mujina were meeting for lunch this time, so she would have to alter her strategy by a thin margin. As of late, their duels had become more lackluster and practice-like, both parties unconsciously teaching the other about themselves through attacks and choice of weaponry. A strange way to tell the often dreary tale one's past, but to a warrior, its artistry was unmatched. If he was lead to believe that this match was to be another of solely storytelling, she could launch a death-move easily and catch him off guard.

She closed her eyes. There was more to him than initial impressions—so many darkened rooms deep inside it would take a lifetime to light all the candles within. Taking a deep breath, she lugged her oversized boomerang onto her shoulder, steeling herself for the whining protest of her joints wishing to be left alone in soreness. "Chichi-ue, I'm going out to practice with Hiraikotsu for a bit before the midday meal!" She called, looking back into her home before heading out into the village centre.

Her father nodded in acknowledgement, a thin smile playing at the corners of his mouth. That Sango. She was growing up into a suitable daughter, with finely chiseled features and strong, wide shoulders much like his own. She could find a mate of high-caliber easily, and could continue the old traditions with her youkai exterminating expertise. A suitor from a distant province had already asked for his daughter's hand. The young man was the lord of a wealthy area, though it was quite small, and promised only the finest for his wife to be and her family. Yes, yes. Despite earlier years, Matsu was beginning to see that to go on living even after a great tragedy can only sweeten the final outcome.

As for Sango, she had no idea what her father had in store for her. She lived for today, and today only. "Are you ready?" She called out at the edge of the forest. "Hello?" Her greetings were met only by silence. Sure, they usually fought at noon, but where would the hanyou go besides this forest? Not to the village for sure, and their pace had been followed in silently agreed conditions for four years. Was there a reason to suddenly break that pattern? Unless he had fled after his defeat…impossible. He would sooner commit seppuku than turn his back on a challenge—that she knew.

"It's me…" She trailed off, dropping her battle stance and stepping into the chokingly thick atmosphere under the dense foliage. It was hard to imagine it being more sweltering below the shade than out in the sun-drenched fields. She listened intently for any signs of life within the woods, ears met with only the steady sound of her boots meeting dry, hard-packed mud. Once, she heard the faintest rustle, and had practically sprinted in the direction of the noise, only to find a pecking pheasant, which then flew away to avoid her crashing footfalls.

Curiosity gave way to frustration and perhaps the slightest tinge of worry. What if another taijiya had found him? Would he tell them that she knew who he was? What if—

She broke off her internal thought. Had she become so stupid? This was that hanyou she was thinking about. What did it matter whether she never saw him again or not? What indeed. _There's something dangerous near you. _Sango jumped, instantly wary of her surroundings as a prick of hard-trained reflexes tingled at her neck. There was something. She could hear its breaths…above her? All she could see was leaves and then some. And the leaves, she was positive, were not a threat. Then, something provoked thoughts of climbing the tree. What would she find at the top? And it had been so long since she had sat in the higher boughs of an elm, just peering downwards at the floor and leaning against the trunk lackadaisically.

So, letting the Hiraikotsu slide down her arm and hit the ground with a hollow thump, Sango gripped the jagged places in the bark, using them as handholds to push herself up to the lowest branch. Then, grabbing onto it, she swung up and knelt on it, fighting to maintain an upright position on the thin limb. Up and up she scrambled, brushing spider webs out of her face and shaking fallen leaves from her hair. There was something mesmerizing about the tree, as if she could not cease until she found what she was looking for. Whatever that was.

And then suddenly there was no more to climb. She let her arm, half-raised to grasp another branch already, fall to her side, and gazed at the rolling valley and the cloud of writhing smoke emanating from the Taiji forges. It was beautiful, in a steamy kind of way. Edging to the opposite side of the tree, she craned her neck to see what lay beyond the forest in the other direction. Squinting into the still rising sun's rays, a sudden dazzle-flash of gold swept into her scope, momentarily blinding her. Panicking, Sango groped for a handhold, the bough below her slipping between her legs and she was falling. Falling like in her dreams so long ago, as warm air rushed past her, and leaves brushed teasingly along her sides.

Never had she imagined it would end this way. Losing her balance in a tree she wasn't supposed to climb without good reason, plummeting into the unyielding summer earth below. Then a hand grasped hers, ripping through her flesh with sizeable talons in an attempt to gain a greater hold on her wrist. She screamed in pain as a few drops of her own hot blood splattered into her open mouth and face.

"What in the name of fucking gods do you think you're doing up here?" A familiar voice grunted, hauling the taijiya—inch by scantest inch—up back into safe territory.

"Looking for you." Sang murmured, gasping for breath and rubbing her bloodied wrist.

"…Me?" The hanyou stalled, gazing at her in surprise. Then he turned away. "What the hell would you do that for." It wasn't truly a question aimed at her. A rhetorical statement at best.

"We—ah!" Sango winced as she released the pressure from her cuts and circulation flowed freely into her hand. She clasped her other hand around the wound again. "We have a fight scheduled."

"And that's so important you'd climb up into MY territory and risk losing your neck trying?" He barked. For some reason, it didn't faze her. She ignored him, taking down her ponytail and using the silk cloth to securely bind the gashes.

"I called for you. Why didn't you come? It would have spared me the trouble." She remarked testily in defense.

"I was sleeping." The reply came before he could stop it and rephrase the truth into something less idiotic-sounding. A hot tinge rose in his cheeks. Top three things a youkai should never do: sleep in a place where someone could see you, fall asleep on the job, and admit to doing either of the aforementioned.

A sudden image of the hanyou dreaming graced Sango's mind. What would he look like without that haughty, guarded expression? Or did he sleep with that too? It would be so much sweeter if she could see him without all those walls between her and his deepest secrets…

"Why the hell are you staring at me like that?"

Sango shook her head out of thoughts she then cursed herself for having, and said half-heartedly, "Is the battle still on, then?"

"We can't end the pattern when I was the one who lost the most recent one." He dropped down to the ground, then waited for Sango to do the same. "Don't take all day, princess."

Sango threw a branch down at him, but did not make any move to follow suit.

"Well?"

"I can't get down."

"For the love of—aargh!" The hanyou threw up his hands in disgust, before alighting on the bough next to Sango once more and gripping her dispassionately around the middle.

Sango smelled the pine bark scent of him as he leaned forward to jump, and relished his cooling breath along her sweat-lined neck. What? She mentally slapped herself. _Don't think that way, don't think that way…_

"Ready?" The hanyou tensed, baring his claws in challenge.

Sango didn't move, turning to face him. "What are we fighting for?"

"It's you who insisted we do. Just remember that and it don't matter."

"Why are you still here? You could have left long ago. Could've found a clan of youkai to live with." Sango's voice was quiet—and quite pretty, actually. It was the tone she used with small children when she was trying to pry information out of them.

The hanyou let out a 'keh'. "Who do you think you're kidding?"

"Well, excuse me for asking then! Forget it!" Sango lashed out, taken aback by his rudeness.

"Fucking bitch."

"You're the one being an idiot! I just asked a simple question!"

"What did we say about the 'idiot' thing last time? Don't you know any other insults?"

"At least I know what I'm talking about, unlike you. Do you even know what half the words that come out of your sorry little mouth mean?" She screamed.

"Bah! Of course I do! How else would I use them?"

"The company you live your life in often rubs off on you. Your vocabulary is gained form those who use the words around you. It doesn't mean you know exactly what every word means."

"Oh, trying to impress me with your superior knowledge now?" He spat sarcastically. "Well I ain't buying it."

"You—idiot." Sango tried to remain furious, but halfway through the word 'idiot' she realized she was saying 'the word' again and drew in a sputtering breath peppered with laughter.

The hanyou paused, dumbfounded. "…The hell?"

Sango forcefully wiped the smile from her face and resumed her angry countenance, but the moment was lost and the argument slipped into a silence of understanding. "Hey, I'm going to the Tama Shrine tomorrow. There's something I want to show you. Come if you want." Sango picked up Hiraikotsu wearily. At this rate, she would be late for lunch with Mujina.

The hanyou shrugged noncommittally and watched the taijiya stroll out of sight. It was hot and sleepy outside, but for some reason, he wanted to run far away from the forest like a madman, with a sense of urging to be reckoned with.

--

Elsewhere Sengoku Jidai 

"My darling, that's right…Relax…" She cooed, stroking a convulsing snake-whip of ki entangled in her spider's web. "Let it all go. Don't fret."

For some reason, the mutterings of comfort only caused the spirit to struggle more fiercely, waves of fear and hatred rolling off of it in tangible waves. Her voice, too, had not held the gentleness her words suggested.

"You will be mine. Never has a spirit escaped my needs. Never." She crushed a silken cocoon in her bare hands, and blew it onto the spirit. It seemed to caw, and went through a series of spasms as the dust touched it, then was still. Only moments later, it regained it's edge and twisted with a renewed urgency.

Unbeknownst to the soul's holder, a silk thread began to entwine itself around it's users heart and along the paths it walked, unconsciously creating a noose from which it would asphyxiate itself to death with. Every breath, every step, drew it closer to death and the moon lady's desires.

"I want you so much, honey. You cannot escape that."

--

Taiji Village 

_Sengoku Jidai_

Meanwhile, an adolescent girl with sharp features and hawkish eyes seethed with impatience and flashed annoyed scathing expressions at anyone who passed by.

She stuck an entire river fish in to her mouth in one swift bite, gulping it down scales and all in frustration.

"Damn you Sango, why did you ditch me?" She yelled up at the sky.

"Why indeed?" Sango smiled down at the seated Mujina before joining her.

"Why were you late?"

"It doesn't really matter, does it? No, I didn't think so."

"Just eat. I made you favorite." Mujina picked up a pair of hashi and grabbed a dumpling out of the furoshiki, holding it up for Sango to eat. Tentatively, Mujina felt for Sango's hand and grabbed it tightly.

"Thanks for showing. Love you, Sango."

-end chapter seven

--

Stupid ending rambles:

I am starting to write the partial accompaniment to this story (it's SessKag) as a gift to all my loyal fans, -cue groan from all reviewers- so keep a lookout! A ha ha ha. 'loyal'.

And bear with me people, the pheasants MIGHT actually be a crucial part in the story, so pay attention!

Also, refresher course in Japanese used in the story:

asagao: morning glory (Why this chapter was called that, I'll leave for you to decide. If you really want to know, don't hesitate to ask.)

furoshiki: carrying cloth

That's it, I think.

I actually wrote this chapter all in one sitting. Amazing, ne? Review and tell me what you think?

Jaa

Kalliel


	8. Bridge Over Troubled Water

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

--

Kikyo-the-walnut: Blah blah blah. Whatever. Onto real people…

Moggy: My condolences toward you—the special reviewer reward is given to you!

Horse-crazy-gurl: I'm trying!

ElshA: Thanks?

AngelShae: -blush- Aw, thanks! I feel so loved.

Abi: Yay! Yup, I do beta read Melon-chan's stories, thank you for noticing.

SpikeSmeagleSparklies: As per usual, you say the right thing in a concise format.

Sweet-thing-88: You may be surprised…And thank you for all the compliments!

Sexysango: Kiss? I dunno…that's getting a bit ahead of ourselves, isn't it?

Thanks for the compliments everyone! Will you be next to win the Special Reviewer Award? Tune in next time!

--

Disclaimer: There is a reason this is called fanfiction…

Preliminary notes: Yay! I created a little something called a PLOT. Congratulations me. And I bumped the rating down again because there was no reason for it to be 'R'. Hopefully that will serve not to scare people away—I'm not capable of writing anything TRULY 'R' anyway.

And so Ascension of the Spirit takes on a slightly romantic turn…hopefully. Wait—I said that last time, didn't I? Well, ain't going to happen. Well, it WILL, just nobody will notice because love for me is slightly different than love for the rest of the world.

--

Beta read by Kikyo-the-walnut/Zora

--

Chapter 8: Bridge over Troubled Water

_Elsewhere _

_Sengoku Jidai_

"What the hell am I doing?" Amidst the mist, heavily intent on devouring the mountain alive, a figure lurked, grabbing any shrub in his way and violently wrenching it from the earth to clear his path. " 'Come to the Tama Shrine' she said, 'I have something I want to show you' she said. Well, shit. She never said where the accursed Tama Shrine was!" The grumbling continued as the ground became less stable and the condensation in the air thickened into fog.

A small lizard skittered across the travel-worn rut the hanyou had followed for the past half hour, though it could have been more, since the sun was annoyingly blocked from view and worthless now as a gauge of time. There were no travelers on the path now. Perhaps it was a day of rest for the townsfolk on pilgrimage, but the path could also merely be a detour constructed by traveling herds of animals; or even the stain of youki left emblazoned upon the land.

The moisture in the air was chokingly obtrusive, blanketing both vision and scents into indistinguishable scrawls of muddle.

"Did she think I went and prayed at some damned forsaken temple all the time or what?" Now he was losing it. Ranting about the idiocy of stupid girls to HIMSELF, no less.

"And what is the forsaken temple you speak of?"

The hanyou literally jumped in surprise. Then, to cover up his startled appearance, shot back, "And what's it to you?"

"Not far from here is a great shrine that most come to worship at," the woman answered politely. She was quite ravishing, dressed in traveling silk of the finest design and fabric. Her eyes sparkled wittingly, framed by black hair pulled back in an elaborate coil. So 'most' really did mean everyone. She appeared to be a lady of a castle, all dressed up for presentation. "It is quite beautiful, even by the standards of the Great Goddess herself."

"Fuck this 'Great Goddess'," the youkai spat, then followed up with a, "Just…tell me what direction it's in." Why was he so tight-strung all of a sudden? It was just some human bitch…

"Just ahead, _youkai-san._"

He pushed past her roughly and bounded up the mountain away from her.

The woman pulled up her cloak to hide the slight chuckle she emitted. "Have fun, _youkai-san_." She mimicked herself in a mocking tone. "You bastard of a prey." Then, picking her way against the flow of loose pebbles and slippery weeds, she disappeared into the uninspiring plant-life.

The hanyou continued upwards, speeding his ascent merely because he wanted to be rid of the fog. The woman, no matter how cloyingly unsettling, had proved herself right, and soon the red torii came into view, a rising dragon of flame in a steaming ocean.

Despite his earlier predictions of the mist suddenly parting and the sun shining down unobstructed, it remained foggy once inside the shrine gates. Even through the blanket of mist, it was evident to him that someone had deliberately planned out the exact floor plan for every corner of the shrine. The snaking gravel pathway was made to look natural--every plot of earth sprinkled amongst the walk was grown to appear wild. The effect came off altogether passable, but underneath the successful exterior, the hanyou could tell it had been a forced effort. Wandering aimlessly through the vast gardens, he noticed a few small, box-like shrines scattered within the foliage, each designated to a different kami.

Tiny bell-rings of petite branches fanned out, covered in even thinner veins making up their lacework. It was hard to believe that the underside of each of those leaves was awash in thorn hooks. _Kind of like the position I'm in now_, he thought absently more focused on the freezing, slippery pebbles beneath his feet than anything else.

_It's ugly here._

Then his ears pricked up, catching a voice in the next grove over._ Whaddaya know, it's that little bratty sidekick girl._

"Sango, I wanted to take Koichi here! Why do we have to come here so early? There's nothing foreseeably urgent here that needs tending to." Mujina whined.

"I like it better in the morning. And besides, you don't bring children like Koichi to the Tama Shrine. He and his family have their own back in Niwatori." Sango objected.

"Kochi is not a child! He's fourteen! Anyway, the shrine is dead, just like that one miko who used to tend to that village. There is no one and nothing left! The villagers even salvaged the building for wood and food!"

The hanyou clenched his fists, tension running through his muscles. He couldn't believe the Niwatori bastards had done something so sacrilegious. Not that he cared in the least, but it had been _hers_. And damn it, 'that one miko' had a name, the girl might as well use it. Not that he had, but still…

"You know what? Fine. Go get him. But I'll be waiting back at the village." Sango turned violently back to the shrine they stood in front of.

"I think I'll do that." Mujina sounded even madder than usual. Sulking, she marched off in the other direction, ponytail swinging like a black viper poised for the kill.

After she was sure Mujina had left, Sango dropped to a sitting position, sighing heavily in defeat. They were fighting most of the time they were together now. And to make it worse, Mujina was straying further from Sango's ever-watchful eye and had been spending more time in Niwatori village 'buying herbs' than was really necessary. The urge to bring Koichi to the picnic that was supposed to be just the two of them proved that Mujina indeed that fallen for someone else to replace her.

But then again, what was she doing? Yes, she had invited that hanyou to the shrine, but for different reasons. They weren't in love or anything… but she WAS hiding her interaction with him from the young woman who was supposed to be her best friend. But that was different…

"No it isn't." She whispered to herself. She was going to be found out sooner or later, and what was 'later' four years ago when all this started was now becoming 'sooner'.

"What isn't?"

Sango cursed. She could feel his presence directly behind her now. Why must he always be able to sneak up on her but never vice versa?

"It is not of your concern." She bit back the icy comment she had meant to say afterwards. He had little reason to stay as long as she needed him for; the mere fact that he was here at all was a favor to her. It was time to walk tenderly over a bridge of troubled water.

"So what am I doing here?" He prompted again, folding the cloth of his sleeves inwards as he crossed his arms.

"You tell me—it's your legs that walked you here." Shit. Wrong thing to say. And she was beginning to think like him, too. _Hospitality…be hospitable…you're the hostess…_she chanted over and over in her head. "I mean, thank you for coming."

"Nothin' better to be doing," he grunted.

"You've used that excuse before, hanyou. Only works once." _Ack, not again! Why does everything I say have to be disagreeable?_

"I have a name, you know." No he didn't. Not a single one since childhood. And even if he had, it was long forgotten.

"Well, what is it?" This conversation was getting nowhere.

"Why would I tell you? Do you want to know my birthday too, so you can get that witch-friend of yours to ill-wish me?" He smirked, leering down at her with a mouth full of white fangs, as if in warning not to get too friendly, because he was still a demon and still ready to slit her throat if the need arose.

"You're not in charge here." Sango reminded him. "Don't give ME a reason to have to cleanse spilt blood from these walls. You can, however, offer incense."

"I'm not religious…" he objected bluntly.

"Stupid, of course not. I don't think there's a youkai alive who would admit to it. But when you fall deeply into trouble, what is it you rely on?"

The hanyou paused, as if contemplating the answer. "Me."

Sango glared at him, then nodded slowly in resignation. "No gods for your kind, then." She dropped a small ball of rice folded and securely tied with leaves at the foot of the shrine, clapped twice, then started down onto a different path, motioning for her acquaintance to follow.

They trekked through the gardens with an uncomfortable air of silence hovering between them, before Sango, in light of trying to inspire the slightest bit of calming chatter, commented, "It's beautiful here, isn't it. The largest shrine on this side of the Musashi division."

"No."

Sango stopped. What the hell? Why was she talking about beauty with him at all? Of course he didn't care. "Oh right. You'd rather see the aftermath of war on a battlefield." But if beauty was that easy to come by, it would be an empty word.

"No." He turned away.

This would be so much easier if he would give in and stop grumbling one-word answers. But the fact, contrary to her prior predictions, that he did not revel in the reek of blood was encouraging. "So what is beautiful in your eyes?"

He didn't answer. They continued to walk in silence once more, before coming to a small bridge that was more for show than for serviceable use.

"What's with all the birds?" The hanyou asked dully. There were birds of varying sizes and colors, all pecking at the ground beneath a spindly crab apple tree.

Sango's hand strayed to her furoshiki. The hanyou too, could feel an unnerving presence behind the gathering. Not physically BEHIND, but it was no coincidence.

Regaining her reserve, Sango walked forward. Almost instantly, the fowl flew up, dive-bombing the taijiya and nipping at her hands which instintivelly flew up to protect her face. The onslaught ceased only when she retreated behind the hanyou.

Speaking of whom, he had been equally caught of guard, and was currently cursing himself for that weakness. "What the fuck?" He grunted, pulling the naked blade of Kyuuriko from his obi and slashing the sole bird that had not returned to foraging like the others in two pieces.

Without warning, Sango vaulted past the hanyou's arm, pushing him backwards as she flew forward to meet the now airborne birds.

"You crazy bitch!" He growled furiously, following suit. "You don't even have any weapons!" The youkai clawed through feathers and flesh, spraying loose plumage and birds' blood into the trickling water below them.

Below him, Sango hurled her furoshiki up into the air, spilling its contents over the bridge and fowl. Fish cakes, pickled plums, musubi, and a mysterious something else floated down, and the multitude of birds made a sharp turn, diverting their attention away from Sango and the hanyou and turning to the food. The two dashed to the other side of the garden.

"What," the hanyou panted, "was in that food?" They continued running until they passed under the torii once more and collapsed to a stop before the rocky slope.

"Nothing!" Huffed Sango indignantly, picking small pebbles from her hands that had accumulated there when she broke her fall. "It was just the lunch I prepared for me and Mujina…"

"Do the birds drop dead now from food poisoning? Or do they explode?" The hanyou's eyes narrowed with his less-than-trusting remarks.

Sango returned the glare. "Ignoramus. It was merely a diversion. They'll be co—" A series of annoyed squawks and crows interrupted her. "As I said, they'll be coming back."

"That still doesn't answer whether or not they'll explode when their poor livers can't process the shit."

"Feeling pity now are we? I bet that's a first. And if you keep talking like that, I can arrange for the sparing of your liver needing to process it by slicing it out myself."

"Hey, I'm the one with the sword. You don't have anything to do the slicing with!"

Sango snorted disgustedly. "Forget I said anything. I for one am going to get our of here before the pheasants from hell peck my eyeballs out." She jumped up, and began fleeing down the mountainside as fast as humanly possible while still treading carefully enough to keep from falling head over heels.

"Hey, wait!" The hanyou staggered after her, leaping over particularly insecure patches of rock to easily match stride with the taijiya. Pushing past her, he shouted, "This way!"

Sango grabbed a section of his ivory hair, pulling him back towards her. "Not so fast!" She objected, "I come to this shrine every moon-cycle! I think I would know which way goes back to the village and it's THIS way!" She motioned in the exact opposite direction.

"Fool! I'm at least half-demon! I know which way I came and it's definitely THIS direction!" He tugged her back to his path. Her sandals slid along the ground a few inches, but he didn't pull her much further than that. She had an iron-fast grip on his hair and _damn_ it hurt. Bitch. Their followers were fast approaching. "They'll be on us in a moment. Just TRUST me!"

Sango laughed bitterly. "Trust you? How dare you use those two words in the same sentence! I'm going home MY way with or without you; it doesn't matter to me!" Sango released her hold on his tresses and turned to her path.

Damn. He looked up, then roughly grabbed Sango by the waist and plunged off the road into the greenery to escape the rush of air and murderous flap of wings right where they had previously stood.

Together they crashed through the bushes, emerging on the other side to continue the decent. Sango cringed every time she heard branches snap and rocks give in under their weight, though she was perfectly safe, pocketed by voluminous billows of a red kariginu.

Down and further they plunged, into fog and darkness and dampness until Sango wasn't entirely sure whether they had already died and were in hell or if they could possibly still be falling.

Eventually, they met the ground with a bone-jarring crunch, Sango all the while protected from any major injury. She remained in his arms and opened her eyes, numerous bruises and small cuts scattered along her flesh making sure she was painfully aware of each one of them.

Her savior of the moment groaned, a deep-throated semi-conscious cry of utter discomfort. Sango kept still and limp. She wanted to know how he acted when he was alone. She hadn't the slightest idea why, but it was that inexplicable urge that kept her quiet when he mumbled her name. If she got what she wanted, she told herself, she would never tell another lie again.

--

Waterfalls 

_Sengoku Jidai_

At first he couldn't tell whether she was alive or not. But after a second, he felt the steady rise and fall of her breath, and even the beat of her heart, she was in such close proximity to him.

Edging away from her leadened, heavy body, he rolled over onto his stomach. Useless wench. He sheltered her the whole blasted way down and she still couldn't stay conscious. Probably fainted out of terror alone. Keh.

He could feel a warm substance trickling down from his scalp, and a stabbing pain along his shoulder blades and the sides of his ribs. 'Keh' again. This was stupid—god-fucked shittily stupid. Muscles protesting from the pain, he backed up against the wall to regain a standing position. It seemed that after their gradual yet forceful tumble, they had dropped the last fifteen feet in a complete vertical fall. She should have just listened to him and gone his direction. Then they wouldn't have had to have gone through this damned torturous experience.

"Hey," the hanyou growled. "You." Sango didn't move. She wanted to see something interesting, damn it.

He walked slowly to her. Didn't hurt that much…Damn. Damn. Damn. Finally he gave in and said more loudly, "SANGO."

Oh well. There would most likely be other times. She sighed—the kind of sigh that a person who was just waking up would make when they found out they were not in their own bed.

"Back among the living, are you?"

Sango grumbled what he took to be halfway between a yes and an indignant retort.

"So what are we going to do? I told you my way was the right one."

"Ha! All this proves is that the way you chose to escape from those accursed birds was definitely the WRONG one! I mean it, if you say one more…" Sango broke off. "Are you okay?" There was a flicker of concern? No, the emotions displayed on the hanyou's face merely gave her the feeling that there was something inexorably bad behind her, and that he was looking at it. She sighed again.

"I am honored to make your acquaintance once more, youkai-san." It was the same woman, quintessential of the princesses of old whilst the Kyoto court still reigned.

"Who the hell are you?" The hanyou felt sick just looking at her.

The lady just smiled faintly, gesturing around the area. Midday sun was at long last beginning to burn away the fog, and they could now see that all around them were walls. How was that even possible? And to make it stranger, more cascades flew off the ridges above them, splashing into a ring of water forming around the woman. "How rude of me. I forgot to make introductions. Welcome to the Cacades, a favorite, shall we say, TOURIST attraction for my valued guests and me. Feel free to make yourselves as much at home as possible."

"And how is that an introduction?" The hanyou snapped.

Then the world seemed to spin. He fell over, disoriented by the turning of the ground. But, it seemed, the rocks below their feet really did move, of that he was certain, as one of the jutting waterfalls which had previously been circled around the lavender-clad maiden pelted downwards onto him, soaking his clothes and hair.

"This isn't funny," he remarked flatly, scowling as he moved out of the way of the water.

"Of that I am aware of. If I had meant for it to be amusing, you would know. Humans and youkai," she paused, looking him over with an inspecting eye, "AND hanyou call me tsukihime."

"O-tsukihime-sama…" Sango breathed. Her partner just looked and stared back and forth between the two of them. She had a lot of explaining to do after he finished off this supposed moon princess.

"Any name?" He spat, carrying an aura of hardy arrogance.

The tsukihime sighed. "Hm…I suppose you filthy bastard and your lady companion Sango may call me by my own name as opposed to a fanciful title like that."

"Then give it to us, damn it!" His eyes glinted, darkening in color from menacing amber to deadly bronze.

The princess swept toward him, fondling loose locks of stringy, wet hair and stroking the side of his face and hard edges of his chin. For some reason, Sango had the dirty impression that she should not be there.

The hanyou recoiled as the maiden made a grab for him, flinging her arms around his neck and touching moist crimson dampness. Pressing her lips against that blood and licking his neck, she whispered, "Kagome."

-end chapter eight

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Stupid ending rambles:

quote"Why would I tell you? Do you want to know my birthday too so you can get that witch-friend of yours to ill-wish me?" endquote

--Like in many anime/manga, such as Fruits Basket, xxHolic, and Sen to Chihiro no kamikukashi, Inuyasha is referring to some random bit of long-standing Japanese folklore that if someone has your name (and in some cases, your birthday) they can curse or control you.

Again, I am deeply sorry for the lack of romance, but I think with my newly found plot (three actually, and I'm using all of them) we should be able to add some good old fashioned Rumiko Takahashi romance and then some. Gomen ne, horse-crazy-gurl! (and anyone else)

And, Kagome had to be in this story somehow! Frankly, I was starting to miss her. This AU world Kagome can also be found in original context on Melon-chan's upcoming story. (I started it but ended up not being able to continue, so I gave it to her. She seemed happy.)

Does anyone care if I update this story at all? Just curious…Because it doesn't seem like it. Please let me know if you do so I don't get too discouraged--

--

Jaa

Kalliel


	9. The Moon Doesn't Cast its Own Light

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

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Kikyo-the-walnut: You want more action? YOU GOT MORE ACTION!!! BWA HA HA!

Moggy: 0o If you have any specific questions regarding the confusing-ness of my writing, please feel free to ask in your review. Horse-crazy-gurl: …Sorry?

The Soultaker: I did update—see chapter 8? Oh, and this chapter too. Thanks for reviewing!

Sango InuTaisho: Thankies!

Purplepeopleeater: Hi there! Long time no see! Feel free to drop by whenever you get the chance, you're always welcome here.

SpikeSmeagleSparklies: Ok, ok. I WILL review your story. Unexpected turns? At the moment, I'm just taking unexpected turns in circles and bumping into a zillion plot walls. Really big steel-reinforced cement ones (that don't collapse in earthquakes!).

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Disclaimer: There is a reason this is called fanfiction…

WARNING: Insanely long chapter, considering amout of actual content.

ANOTHER WARNING: Sad, pathetic attempts at romance.

ONE MORE WARNING: I was delirious with fangirlisms at time of writing. -shame shame-

NEVERMIND, THIS IS THE LAST WARNING: Dark…er? Well, maybe.

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Beta read by Kikyo-the-walnut/Zora

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Chapter 9: The Moon Doesn't Cast its Own Light

_Behind the Cascades_

_Sengoku Jidai?_

"K…Kagome?" The hanyou stepped backwards. A flash. A scream. The name carried nonexistent memories. Shattering reflections?

"That's enough revelations for one day." Kagome put her hand over her mouth and giggled femininely, turning slightly so that her kimono's silk threads sparkled in the dim sunlight. Eyes flickering with nothing short of deception, she began to sing to herself. A tuneless, dry melody that echoed unrealistically throughout the chamber.

"The nearest exit is to your left. Please allow me to direct you to it." Placing her hands on the hanyou's back as well as Sango's, she steered them fluidly to what appeared to be an arch of water above them. Strange; they hadn't seen that before. The small spit rolled off without a sound, drowned out by the dull humming of the tsukihime that Sango wasn't entirely sure was actual singing or if she was simply imagining things.

She didn't retaliate in the least bit, allowing herself to be steered to what would be presumably the direction home. Deep inside, her mind screamed at her to run, to fight, but still she walked, numb from intellect and reason, listlessness taking its place. Her only thought was, "I could have been eating lunch now…"

"Fare you well, until we meet again." As classically mysteriously slow as ever, the Lady Kagome of the moon-turns seemed to take the arc of water in her hands and pulled it closed like a curtain of aqua behind the two fighters, separating her pools from the new scenery.

Sango watched in horror as the tsukihime did so, springing into action suddenly and trying to grab a fold of Kagome's clothes, to keep the opening wide. She missed, and slammed into a tree trunk, though only minutes before it had been a stone wall with a door of water. She shook her head in disbelief, half-listening to the only semi-confused, "What the hell?" behind her.

"Please stop saying that. It is beginning to become immensely irritating." She glared at him frostily, shoulders sagging with evident fatigue.

"What the hell do you want me to say instead? I suppose YOU know exactly what's going on, then!"

"I said stop it!"

"No, YOU said something pretty damn respectful when she told us her title. Why?" No way in hell was she going to get out of answering this. No way.

"She claimed to be the moon princess…" Sango explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"What happened to Kaguya? Did she get upstaged by this 'Kagome' or what?" As far as he knew, the princess Kaguya had been the possessor of the moon's powers, and seemed to always have been.

"Things change, if you haven't noticed. Kaguya-hime was eaten by a youkai. The youkai stole her ability to stop time and to remain forever youthful. My great grandfather…he was one of the warriors chosen to exterminate the defiler of the moon goddess' name."

The hanyou laughed. Sango glowered.

"Didn't think gods had to worry about stuff like that. So she's the moon goddess. Leaving your river god to worship her now?"

"O-tsukihime-sama has control over time and wields the ocean's tides. It is not wise to offend her."

"Then we're good, since neither of us is particularly wise."

Sango bristled, smoothing her hair back and re-tying it into a tighter ponytail. "Turning back to the task at hand," she prompted in an irritated tone, "I don't suppose in all your years of worldly traveling knowledge, you would happen so recognize this place in which we have found ourselves?"

"Awfully high expectations."

Sango groaned. "I don't care what you say you are, you really ARE an idiot. Don't you know sarcasm when you hear it?" Sango finished tightening the bonds on her sandals too. She looked around curiously. "This is no mortal garden. It is exactly like the moon kingdom in stories of old." The rolls of the hills, the temperate climate and lack of youkai aura tremors in the air proved it. No real forest would be complete without the presence of small forest creatures. Only the birds in the trees wailed a sorrowful tune in time to the swish of the closely-entwined boughs above.

"Ha! You really think so?"

"Yes, I do." Sango replied testily.

"Just trying this sarcasm thing of yours out." The hanyou smirked and started what was going to be a slightly-longer-than-usual trek back home. They had been set at the edge of a forest with the strangest of trees—monstrous looming trunks topped with bristly needles that smelled of cold and fire at the same time.

The bark, Sango observed, was very soft and fibrous; useless as a weapon, but, she thought, might add substance to a stew. Foreign, untamed. Granted, she wouldn't have missed the chance to merely go AROUND the woods, as it was much easier to be ambushed amongst the trees, but when she had mentioned the thought he argued that it was faster to travel straight through the middle.

And so they walked. Creeping vines of low-growing flowers snaked along the base of the trees, threatening to trip an unwatchful hiker. Taking heed to not tread on the delicate blossoms, Sango carefully plucked one from its place in the rows. She remembered these. _Asagao_, Riie-baachan had called it. Morning glories. Purely ornamental, it could not be eaten or used in any particularly useful remedies. She sighed. You can tell you're hungry when all your thoughts end up centering on food at one time or another. She had denied herself breakfast putting the finishing touches on the bento she had prepared, but it had been scattered and eaten by the strange flock of birds…It wasn't fair, really. She hadn't done anything wrong—why did the gods of luck have to forsake her now? In a strange place, with strange company…

Fallen needles cushioned the ground, adding minor spring to Sango's steps. A thin smile crept into her features. This day was going from bad to worse. First, the fight with Mujina, and now totally unarmed, without food or water, confused, and lost. To top it off, she had no one with her but a possibly mutinous youkai!

Her partner was none so buoyant. It showed. A lot. "What is with these fucking trees?"

Sango fell out of her jovial frame of mind. "What's the matter, scared of the big, scary trees?" She caroled in a mocking tone.

The hanyou sniffed, long wiry hair lashing from side to side, and set off at a slightly more urgent pace. "The branches are too close together. Makes it fuckin' hard to do anything."

Sango continued to follow in silence, shrugging. He was speeding up again, twisting between the trunks of the unidentifiable greenery, fleeting in and out of view.

Then he abruptly reversed direction and sped back to her. "Wait here," he ordered forcefully, then raced back.

Sango stopped for a split second, gaping, until she realized what just happened. Did he really think she was going to wait here and avoid whatever it was he found? Running as fast as her kosode would allow, she preceded to find what it was he thought she should not see.

Once, she almost fell flat on her face when she slipped on the succulent leaves, before forcing herself back up without losing too much momentum. Crashing through the wilderness, she heard his voice utter something indiscernible more closely related to a gurgle than actual words. She stopped short when she saw the creature he faced. It looked like her! Save for the clothing, at least, which mirrored that of Kagome-hime. So the moon princess was still after them. She glanced rapidly between her double and the hanyou, sensing the madness in the air. Reflections…mirrors…moonbeams… There was something amiss. He could fight some sliver of an opponent like that with ease, she reasoned. Maybe she should just stand by and watch—he could do to let off some pent-up aggressions anyhow. For now, she would be content just to sit in the audience.

He charged at the girl, claws twisting upward like saw-hooks, connecting with her shoulder and ripping through muscle and bone alike before Sango had even finished her thought trails.

The Sango look-alike didn't seem to notice, pulling her wakizashi from her obi and thrusting its edge toward the hanyou, slicing the air directly in from of him.

What if Kagome had stolen her shadow to create her puppet? Then, if it was killed, she…"No wait! Hey, you! Half-breed!" Sango shouted at the hanyou as he ducked under the blade and shot toward the youkai once more, clawing downwards and catching her breasts, bright red blood spraying his face even as he jumped backwards. The hanyou didn't listen to Sango's frantic pleas, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand. He jumped toward the demon-creation once more.

"I said stop!" Sango shrieked, at a loss at what to do besides stand and shout. She wasn't about to try and get in the way of him and his target, especially given the fact that she lacked her first choice in the way of weapons and defense.

The glimmer-Sango materialized a giant boomerang out of thin air, causing Sango again to fantasize wistfully that she could do the same, and swung expertly at the oncoming hanyou, sending him sprawling backwards, skidding along the thickly matted underbrush. He grunted, scrambling to get up as the other Sango continued to attempt to ram him into the ground with her oversized weapon.

The hanyou growled, punching away the boomerang and sinking his talons deep into his enemy's neck. She fell then, dissolving into moondust and disappearing and the wind's back. He stopped, crouched where he landed for a moment to catch his breath.

Sango ran toward him. "You didn't go and get yourself hurt did you? What exactly did you think you were doing, just coming here to fight and leaving me alone? There WILL be more." She even kind of wished there would be. Now SHE needed to vent in a more physical way than yelling at the hanyou would allow.

"Ha, I'm not spineless enough to be injured by the likes of that. But I didn't see YOU helping any."

"Well, in that case," Sango smiled overly-brightly. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? We're in the realm of the moon! That could have been my reflection! You could've KILLED me!"

"Well, I didn't." The hanyou retorted lamely. He hadn't thought of that…

"But what if it had?"

"You'd be dead, for one thing," he shrugged nonchalantly. "That's about all that would change."

Sango's eyes narrowed. "And that would be totally fine with you? It wouldn't even bother your conscience in the least bit?"

"Listen, if I felt sorry and beat myself up over every little thing I killed, I would have committed suicide a long time ago."

Sango sighed. "Well, let's go then." She started walking again.

Grumbling, the hanyou leaped on ahead, catching the scent of yet another moon creation. There was no doubt that the Sango duplicate was HER work, and this next one promised to be just as strange and twisted.

"Do you remember me?" The creation called out before it came into view, guiding him towards her. "I loved you once. A long time ago." Her voice, if it had been an image, would have been painted by a master artisan. But that artisan would have been a very dear close friend, sweeping his brush across the page in an affectionate flourish.

Jumping into another clearing, he jolted to a stop when he saw who the dolls had taken the shape of, causing Sango, who was right behind him, to bump slightly against his back. "Midoriko!"

"Yes, my dear hanyou. That was my name. Do you still have my sword?" She asked calmly, as if inquiring on the good health of an old friend, eyeing the naked blade at his hip. "I would like it back now."

"You're dead. And now you're just a worthless doll made by that Kagome woman!"

The creation Midoriko drew nearer, and whispered so only he could hear, "That's right. I am dead. But my soul has wandered. The Sango you killed before was merely a puppet because the true Sango still lives. I, on the other hand, am not. So I come to you to retrieve my sword. Then I will leave you."

_What is he waiting for?_ Sango shouted in her head. _Why doesn't he just kill her? Unless…oh gods. You CAN'T tell me…_

"I missed you," he protested. "I tried to save you, I really did…" The hanyou looked down, unable to look at her any longer.

…_THIS is wonderful._ Sango was about to turn away in disgust and leave them to their reminiscing when Midoriko slowly pulled out an ensorcelled scroll from her armor, unbeknownst to the hanyou. Sango squinted to make out the slightly distorted characters on the scripture, and was not shy from a not-so-rare emotion commonly referred to as surprise. _I thought they were in love—why is she trying to kill him? _The scroll read 'purge', and would exorcise him immediately should she apply her powers and give the kanji life.

The Midoriko-esque moon lady turned slightly to face Sango. _It won't kill him, taijiya. No one would want that. I only want to talk for a bit. Without you. Somewhere very far away._

"Stop right there!" Sango whirled around and charged at the priestess, flicking her wrist so that a blade of sharpest bone flew up to catch Midoriko unaware, slicing through her ofuda.

The hanyou moved to stop Sango, making a grab for the concealed blade, motions slowed by indecision. Sango didn't flinch, slicing through the sleeve of his kariginu along with the fake Midoriko's left arm. Kicking her to the ground, Sango stomped hard on the miko's ribs, shouting in time to her heavy footfalls, "Stop bothering us, you dirty lie of a memory!" Stabbing the creations with her own sword multiple times, Sango breathed a sigh of relief when the Midoriko impersonation followed its predecessor and dissolved and melted into the earth.

"You…" The hanyou started, still staring at the spot where Midoriko once stood, confused.

"Saved your sorry life, that's what I did." Sango carefully folded the hidden blade back in, pulling a temporary net over it for a second use.

After that they hiked in silence for a long while, hanyou still understandably upset at all these mind-tricks and Sango caught up in her own thoughts.

_Why is it that all the battles so far seem to be centered on that hanyou's memories, but nothing from my heart has come up yet? _She wondered warily, kicking a pinecone. How long had they been hiking, anyway? It had been a good deal of time since their last skirmish, which had just past midday. Now the skies had turned red and lavender with sunset, bringing a fiery tinge to every bush and tree branch.

While pleased that none of the fights directly involved her past, she did envy him for one thing. Every branch that cracked in the darkness, every bird that fluttered its wings in the trees, hidden by branches, made Sango jump. Walking a good safe distance behind him, she couldn't read his face, but he didn't seem the least perturbed that the night was very much alive. If anything, she had imagined that it would be the other way around, with him on edge at every sound and her not caring.

He stopped abruptly at the next clearing. "We'll stop here for the night." He said, without much conviction.

"What? Are you crazy? We have a long way to go and the sun hasn't even set yet! We need to keep pushing onward until it's too dark to see! I want to go home!" Sango marched up to him and slapped him on the back. "I thought you of all people would agree to that."

Without warning, and to Sango's utterly stunned surprise, the hanyou collapsed under her touch, though it had not been all that hard, and fell limply to his hands and knees, exhaling brokenly, claws digging into the freshly turned soil. "Shit…"

Sango gasped, and dropped instantly to his side. "What—what happened? Are you sick? You're not injured, are you? No, of course not, there's nothing that could've…" Sango panicked. He wasn't the best company one could hope for, but…but if he was gone, she would be all alone, lost forever in the moon princess' garden. If he died, what would she do? But that was overreacting, wasn't it? He wasn't going to die...

Shakily, he got to his feet again. Leaning against a sturdy trunk, he growled at her, "What'd you do that for?" It felt like he had just run around the world and back. The scenery began to slant and distort itself, and he closed his eyes against the dizziness. So close… So DAMN close. But she had to be fucking assertive, didn't she? He scowled at her accusingly.

"I…uh, what's wrong?" She stepped closer, inspecting his face for any shift of emotions. There was none. "I…I guess we could stop here if you want…" she agreed lamely. Somehow she got the feeling that even if she asked any questions she really wanted to know the answer to, she wouldn't get an answer.

"You…stay here. I'm going to search for some edible wild plants. Don't even think about sneaking off somewhere!" Not like he would. She edged past his silent form, feeling those burnt amber eyes following her every move with a stalker's intensity. Now he must really hate her.

After he was sure she was both out of eye and ear shot, he crumpled to the ground again, relieved of the strain of standing. _Why? _He thought desperately. He crawled to a more level section of the ground, cursing all the way. It was so pathetic… And she could see him…like this. The world tipped again. He was thinking too hard. Laying his head down on the cool pine needles, he felt a little better, though the branches were far from soft. Curling himself into a protective ball, for the first time in his life, he desperately wanted to cry.

Sango wandered around the perimeter of their new campsite, scanning the moistened ground for possible supper-material. She COULD always go back to her original muse and chew tree bark…but that wasn't nearly as appealing. Not that her true intentions lay on returning back with meal supplies. Not in the least—the hanyou needed time along to collect himself for a few minutes. She was overall pleased with herself that she had come to identify his antics well enough so that she knew such.

Ah, there we go. A fairy ring of mushrooms; and they complimented the unripe berries she had found earlier. She tried to smile, but she was sure it more resembled a grimace of pain than anything else. She was deathly scared. _I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be by myself. I want…I want my family and my friends back! I want to go back to living normally. I want…I want to be with him._

She drew back into the clearing, thoughtless relief momentarily sparking when she saw that he was still there, albeit lying on the ground helplessly, but still there. "Hanyou… Here. Eat this." She tossed a bundle of the tart, green berries and a few of the mushrooms at him. She didn't want to see him, and she knew for sure HE didn't want her to see him. She tried to discretely avert her eyes, but only a moment later she abruptly turned back toward him and kneeled down by his side.

She looked down at his eyes, glassy with pain and delirium, not focusing on her or anything else in particular around her. She touched his forehead, wiping sweat drenched locks away from his face and feeling the burning temperature of his skin. A shiver raced down his spine as she did so, his breathing skipping a beat. It had gotten much worse in the short time it took her to find the food.

He hissed at her, a rabid throaty rasp, claws sweeping upward in warning. She recoiled slightly at his feral 'welcome', panicking. _What if he doesn't recognize me? _He dropped his guard, inhaling rapidly, screwing his eyes tight.

So, instead of calmly assessing the situation from the view of an uninvolved onlooker as she had been taught to do, she merely panicked more. "We, uh, we need to get you to a healer! Just hold on a little bit, I'm sure we're nearly to a town…" She tried to lift his deadweight of a body into a sitting position, without hurting him too much. Her only rewards were a moan of sheer discomfort and a sharp intake of breath, followed by a series of rattling, dry coughs before she dropped him back to the ground with a muted thud.

"Go away," he gasped, trying to breathe without sounding pressed to do so. "Just…sleep. I'll be fine in the morning." He weakly assured her, not pausing at all between words so they slurred together and Sango wasn't exactly sure what he said.

"But you—no!" Sango really couldn't care less whether she made sense or not anymore. How STUPID could she get? The whole time they were walking and she didn't even notice.

He tried to move to look her in the eye, biting back a cry so hard he actually cut his lips and started to bleed. Sucking air between his fangs, he bumped against her knees slightly. "Damn it…just get some rest…I'm FINE."

Sango nearly laughed out loud. 'Fine' was not the word. "If you die I will hunt you down in the next world and kill you AGAIN myself!" She threatened emptily, dusting herself off and brushing the needles and underbrush from the center of their camp. Clumping the drier branches in the cleared section, she poured a small watertight bag of oil form her pockets onto the foliage. Striking a stick supposedly blessed with the fire god's power against her flint, sparking up a small fire to sit by.

Let the forest youkai be drawn to it—she needed the comfort only a campfire could give. Not being able to think of anything else to keep her fears as far away was possible and keep herself occupied, she began to talk. The first thing that came to mind was Kaiyou, her mother.

"When haha died, it was like I had lost a part of myself. Unfortunately, it happened to be the social part." She laughed a little at her own little irony. "I cried too easily and there was no one left to hold onto—everyone else either didn't care or was too busy crying by themselves." Sango stared through the flames over at her companion. Why was she telling him this? He would only mock her.

"It's hard…outliving the ones you love, isn't it? But…I'll bet that it's even worse…the other way around…knowing you won't be there to protect them," was all he said. No laughing.

Sango continued. She had never talked about her mother to anyone else after her death before because no one had ever listened. "It's the most terrifying thing in the world when you find out you're the only one left."

The hanyou nodded, mouthing the words, "I know," even though no sound came out.

The sun sank lower, carrying the noises of the evening so only the occasional crackle of embers dying sounded. "Do you think that the o-tsuikihime-sama sleeps when the moon is dark?"

The hanyou jerked. The turning of the cycle…of course. Aw, damn…Pretending his jerk of surprise was an attempt to look at her again, he croaked, "You must be crazy."

Sango eyed him reproachfully, though in the back of her mind she was glad he had said just that. It was normal. There had already been too many things that day that weren't.

"This is probably the night…where she wanders alone…" he continued.

Alone. "Do you think she's lonely too?" Sango twisted and untwisted a section of the peculiar bark before throwing it in to feed the fire. An all too familiar surge of panic rushed up when he did not answer, but when she looked up, she realized he merely either lacked the energy to speak anymore or didn't have an answer.

"You should try to get some rest." Sango advised. "I'll keep watch."

"Keh!" He coughed, "You humans…always so obliged to your companions."

"Sango shook her head, a twinge of minor annoyance sparking up. _He can't even stand and he's still putting on all that fake 'superior being' bravado. _

Maybe she was more tired than she thought. Everything on his side of the camp seemed to be cast in shadows more than her flickering firelight provided. Strange… Kind of like ebony strands, his hair… And before she knew it, despite all her valiant attempts to stay awake, she had dozed off thinking, "We'll be safe. The only one who can hurt us here is the moon goddess herself, and if the hanyou was right, she is wandering somewhere far away." How wrong she was.

The hanyou shuddered a sigh of relief. The youki was always the first thing to go. He could feel the drain of power ever so slightly before, but it had kept getting worse and worse as the sun began to set and he couldn't figure out why until Sango brought up the new moon. He couldn't believe he had forgotten.

At least the slayer woman had fallen asleep before she truly realized his human form. It would have been wonderful to have to explain all that in his present condition, since he knew there was no way in hell she'd of waited until morning if she had seen him like this.

Blowing a few loose strands of black hair from his eyes, he pondered. What if she woke in the middle of the night? He had to get somewhere else to sleep. His mysterious ailment—though he did have a loose idea of what it could be—seemed to be waning in power enough at least so he could think clearly, so it would be best to move out of sight of the taijiya. Damn that so-called Kagome-hime. Edging up against the nearest tree that encircled their camp, he used it as a crutch to stand, wrapping his arms as far around the diameter of the tree as their length allowed, he leaned against the bark, more or less standing. Mission accomplished. Now, to move. Tentatively letting go of the tree, his knees instantly crumpled beneath his weight and he fell back into a half-crouching position.

Damn. Gradually, he could feel the burning sensation of more pain welling up, and then it rammed into him like a wave of titanic proportions and he made a sound he never thought he ever would. The sound of some kind of feral dog in excruciating agony. He doubled over, moaning like something that had been run over by an entire army of horses but still clung to the last strand of life it possessed. Every organ in his body felt like it was being squeezed until it was no more, breathing sharp and irregular, going out of his mind with pain.

It was then the shadows took him; literally. They sprung up from the eastern darkness out of reach of the fire, wrapping around his arms and middle, dragging him further into their realm. He weakly protested, trying to stay where he was but not entirely sure why he would rather be here than where the tendrils intended for him to go. The shadows only pulled tighter, constricting his breathing and cutting into the flesh of his body like wire wrapping around meat at the butcher's stall.

Dimly, he was amazed that Sango had not woken, half of him silently screaming for her help and the other praying that she would not see. The bonds bit deeper, his head exploding with more, renewed pain as the bright red arterial blood flowed fiercely from his arm and spurted like a small fountain, drenching the grass and mulch beneath him with crimson wetness instantly. He let go.

_Let them take me. I give up._

_--_

_In the Moon Princess' Garden_

_Sengoku Jidai_

For a moment all he could see was darkness, eaten alive by fear.

Then someone lightly touched him on the shoulder, airily caressing it. "My dear… Wake up for me, please." Fabrics shuffled and he felt someone sit on the ground next to him. The same being gently lifted his head up and placed it in her lap.

The clothing she wore was so smooth and seamless, although dimly he was sure he was spilling blood all over it. Blearily, he opened his eyes, tilting his head back so he could see the person's face.

Kagome smiled down at him ethereally, her features barely creasing.

He twisted violently, rocking himself out of her lap, part crawling, part sliding away. He fell after a few feet, overwhelmed by the scent of his own blood and tired beyond his imagination. The moon princess scooted forward a little, reaching her hand out to pull him back toward her. Spitting. He tried to catch her fingers in his fangs, but she moved them away in time. He tumbled into straight her from the momentum of his futile attack and ended up back in her lap once more.

She rolled him onto his back lovingly, cool fingers dancing along his skin with pleasure. She relished the intake of excited breath as she smelt his essence in the air, the warmth of his blood on her body. "You're in my web."

The hanyou slowly nodded, making a noise that meant yes.

"You know that the moon doesn't cast its own light. It's only a reflection of true power—a weaker copy. I can't cast my own light either. I need to draw off of another being's sustenance." She hugged him closer, his semi-conscious body at the complete expense of her will. "I need YOU. Especially now, when my palace is dark, hidden away…" The hanyou nodded again, whimpering a little as she increased her flow of power from him to prove her point.

"Then you know that you will die soon."

The two stayed silent for a while, Kagome-hime taking her eyes off of her plaything for a moment to look up at the moonless sky. "But I can make it so you live. I like you. You deserve to keep on living, hanyou. I can make it so it works." She gingerly brushed her hands along his injured arm. He winced as she did so, but the skin reformed along her touch, closing the wound so that it was only a scar of a memory. "Do you want to know what you need to do for me?"

-end chapter nine

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Things no one but a very avid reader reads:

"What happened to Kaguya?" "She was eaten by a youkai."

-Dealings in reference to the second movie of Inuyasha. That is the only thing I got out of the whole movie—Kaguya-hime was eaten by a youkai (false tennyo).

"So she's the moon goddess. Leaving your river god to worship her?"

-The shrine Sango was at was to the river kami. I didn't bother elaborating in the text because it was irrelevant anyhow. So what Inu—I mean, THE HANYOU meant was, "Are you going to start putting offerings of mochi at Kagome's dou too?"

When they are talking about the trees…

-West Coast Pines and California redwoods, what else can I say? It was the first non-Japanese native tree I could think of that wasn't…you know…a palm tree or a tropical plant. And yes I live in California. It's bad to develop an unhealthy obsession with states/provinces/countries you have never been to, like…Finland…and…Japan…

Like any good Girl Scout, Sango knows which plants are edible, AND how to make a campfire! But don't try this at home, folks, because most likely someone will die!

As I was typing this all out, I thought that maybe I should break off at "Let them take me. I give up." And save the rest for chapter 10. But I decided that would be cruel. Heh. Originally, I had planned for the entirety of the new chapter ten to come would to be the end of chapter 9, but Zora said that it was better this way. SO if chapter 10 is like, "WTF?" I just thought you should know that it was originally the end of this chapter. Kagome-hime is so creepy!

Oo

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, as I did my VERY BEST in trying to do everything Zora and I wanted and making it less choppy. Ugh. Personally, I am not satisfied with a single one of these chapters but this one sure comes the closest. What do you think?

I have probably told this to you guys every single chapter now, but I AM SO SORRY FOR LACK OF ROMANCE! I AM INEPT! INCAPACITATED! THE ONLY THING I HAVE WRITTEN EVEN REMOTELY SIMILAR TO THE ROMANCE GENRE IS A KANNA FIC CALLED "The Girl With Lilies in Her Hair" and A DRABBLE THINGY CALLED "Quondam".

AAAAH! I AM TRYING!--hears Zora snickering in background—

Jaa

Kalliel


	10. The Name of Life

Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

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Kikyo-the-walnut: sung to Pokemon Theme "Each girl scout cookie, to understand—the calories insiiide!"

Moggy: You make me feel so special, Moggy. ! Love ya!

Horse-crazy-gurl: I'm not putting myself down. Merely stating the obvious. Perhaps this chapter will prove more fruitful.

SpikeSmeagleSparklies: I think so too! But I can never tell chapters 8-10 apart, really. To me, they're part of the same story arc, so I don't know where one starts and the other ends.

SexySango: Maaaaybeee…

Mysteries Abound: Feel free to drop by whenever you feel like it!

Purplepeopleeater and Elinor: Thank you for hanging around here! People like you, the non-members of fanfiction dot net, make me really happy when you review multiple chapters, because you have no way of seeing if I have updated or not, or even remembering my name, which fanfiction you were reading, or what it was about! If I had to do that, I would fail miserably…And purplepeopleeater, I think I like you. For some reason, I had what you said in your review stuck in my head…Oo From now on, Kagome-hime is the Creepy Licky Lady! I like that.

ElshA: Thankie?

And last but not least, to the reviewer, This is shitty: Lol.

-

Disclaimer: There is a reason this is called fanfiction…Liem Shi Hua is mine, but I don't really want him…and so is Niwatori Village…I DO want to keep that…not the food district though. 

-

Beta read by Kikyo-the-walnut/Zora

You should read her fic, "Cries of the Fire"! After we're done here, obviously. ;D And I know it seems like I posted the wrong story here, but Liem Shi Hua, Chinese astronomer, DOES belong in Ascension. No need to worry!

Also, you should try out Ascension's sister story, Blood of the Innocent by Melon-chan.

-

Chapter 10: Inochi no Namae—The Name of Life

The Moon Garden

Sengoku Jidai

There was a strange scent in the air. As Shi Hua had been taught, a strange scent often led to difficulties.

For instance,

He remembered the exact words of his mother's stories, and her fragrant incense as she told all her children her tales was an even stronger recollection.

Death. It is a strange smell. Do not tarry in lands such as those.

But it intrigued him so! He and his sister had traveled across the seas and along the thickest guarded outposts all the way from the Middle Kingdom to get to this strange land. Now that his beloved sibling was gone, he had nothing to lose by satisfying his curiosity—his family would grieve, of course, but they had other sons. It would be all well and good. And so Liem Shi Hua, dragon-astronomer extraordinaire, son of Liem Zhang, the Great Emperor Himself's moon advisor, set out into thicker layers of whatever ailed the winds in this region.

Treading carefully, whisperingly lightly on broken tree limbs, he gracefully swerved among the closely weeded boughs, clawing away the foreboding scent from his nostrils. He banked left, setting himself down in a small clearing. A pitiful fire burned in the center, releasing the area from darkness. On one side there appeared to be a dormant merchant woman, fast asleep, cradled with dreams and nightmares. Shi Hua turned his attention to the other side. She was not important to the mystery of the weird smell.

Crawling down into a gulley, he purred in delight at his victory. For once in his life, things were going his way. With this newfound luck, he might actually find that which he sought. The scent instantly sprang up around him and he crawled along the downward slope somewhat happily. There was no true light to speak of, but the area below seemed to radiate with a glow all its own. Not from the moon, for it slept away that night, but something else. Shi Hua slithered to level ground, eyeing a beautiful maiden in the clearing. She resonated in his vision with the power of the celestial skies pulsating as one. Such a fine maiden shouldn't be wandering in a forest such as this alone…He licked his lips with fervor. She would be suitable for midnight rendezvous with certain male inclinations—and someone his father would approve of. In her lap was the source of the smell, though now he realized that he too was covered in the choking aroma. Looking down with his iridescent sapphire eyes, there was a long smear of red along his perfect pearly scales. His claws too, were covered in it.

What was the meaning of this? There was no crimson printing ink to be found, so what was this red liquid? He glanced behind him; the trail of supposed ink was there as well.

The maiden looked up, eyes glittering with overjoyed madness. "And who do we have the honor of making an acquaintance with, ryuu-san?" Her voice was the chime of bells of the finest metal to his ears. Shi Hua gaped in awe, flexing his muscular shoulder blades and advertising his golden mane.

"Do you honestly wish to court with the moon goddess? You, Liem Shi Hua, the son of a bastard dragon lord's scientist of my universe?"

Shi Hua, oblivious to the malicious glint in her voice, swelled with pride. She knew his name! If dragons could blush, he would have.

"You came to my garden investigating a tainted smell, correct? Nothing escapes me in my realm, dear Liem Shi Hua." Kagome-hime slanted her eyes. "Growing up spoilt, you know not what blood is, do you." She asked rhetorically, but he shook his head anyway. "You don't know death, nor pain, nor blood."

He shook his head again. He had indeed never heard of the latter two, but he knew death. Death was when his sister Li Shen vanished; that was death. And he didn't ever want to see it again. He could still hear Li Shen screaming at him, writhing with pain as she regurgitated her first meal in the halls of Japan's most powerful shogun. And he could still remember the terrible gurgle as she collapsed, and what he saw in the remains of her food that she had thrown up. Crawling, flipping youngling snakes, hungry for nutrients and snapping with poisonous jaws. He backed away, keeping his senses locked on her.

Kagome-hime lovingly set the hanyou in her lap down, reassuring him with a gentle coo. She floated down to the dragon, the frills of her elaborate kimono billowing. "Indecency, Shi Hua. Indecency. No matter what the cause, you do NOT disrupt the tsukihime whilst she is amusing herself. You DO NOT."

The last thing Shi Hua remembered was the causer of the strange substance the maiden had called 'blood' crawling toward them determinedly. That 'thing' was croaking something to him in a foreign tongue. Did he want Shi Hua to leave? The sad mess of red and black concentrated more earnestly on Shi Hua, still whispering in a language that he knew for sure was not that of his people. Shi Hua still stared, perplexed by the meaning of this caution. Then the dragon exploded from inside out, splashing Kagome with warm dragon's blood and littering the dense undergrowth with various apparatus intended for the digesting and breaking down of foods. A few glittering fangs swam among the entrails innocently. The hanyou bit his lip in frustration, hot red flush of guilty fury burning on his face.

Kagome shuddered, turning to the hanyou. "You're wondering why I didn't just send him away; why I resorted to such vulgar methods. You think I am a monster. Hanyou…it is only because you have made me such!" Her voice cracked, and she fell to the ground sobbing uncontrollably. For the strangest reason, he wanted to crawl over to her and hug her then, and let her cry and cry while he consoled her. But by the time the hanyou reached her side though, her tears had already subsided and the strange urges that had possessed him had passed.

She looked at him, wiping her eyes with the back of her fine-boned hand, thinking about her entangled prisoner. All her pent-up anger and sadness was spent, and she realized that all that remained in her heart was undying devotion. She could remember a time when she was happy, so long ago. And it was because of him. She couldn't use him like this…not until the point to where she sucked him away. Not him.

"I want you to live. But…I need your ki. I need your strength." Kagome whispered. "Without it, I will fade away. So to save both our lives, I need you to do one thing." She looked up into his still-grey eyes, hugging him close once more and wiping his face with her cool hands. The hanyou shivered reflexively at her touch. She frowned. Was he that scared of her? She couldn't bear to think what would happen if he would never grow to trust her. No more games, then. She had better just tell him before he came to the point where he didn't believe her even if she did tell him later.

"I need you to find Sango's strongest feature."

The hanyou jerked, inadvertently swaying in the moon princess' arms.

"The strongest emotion…loyalty, perhaps? Or strength, like you. Find it for me and I will free you. I am near powerless outside my domain, so you are going to be my messenger."

The hanyou nodded, twisting around to face the princess.

"A simple fact. One bit of information. And you can be free." Kagome-hime looked up. Opalescent hues of sunrise peeked into the eastern sky. The moonless night was coming to an end.

The hanyou could feel the gradual ebb of youki flowing back into his veins, permeating his body with a warm feeling. He grinned inwardly, flexing his fingers with anticipation. Upon trying to sit up, however, lacerated aches shot up his ragged frame, and he was forced to return to the sanctuary of her lap.

She stroked his chest lightly. His muscles froze beneath her fingers, as if he didn't dare move while she lingered on his skin. "Before we part, I have one last question for you."

Nodding less-than-enthusiastically, he whispered, "Depends…what the question is…"

"Do you remember your past life?"

"My…?"

Kagome restated her inquiry. "The life you lived before this time…do you remember what you did? Who you met…" Kagome trailed off, lost in apparent memories. She faintly remembered that someone kissed her, and they were happy. "Because I do."

It was a genuine question, too. It was weird, perhaps even highly disturbing, hearing a moon goddess talk as if she knows you. All of the sudden, this merciless killer who robbed others of their vitality to live was transformed into a curious young girl before his eyes.

Kagome-hime continued. "I remember you. I remember loving you. But I don't remember the feeling being returned to me."

Usually, you don't recall what life you led before your current one…was that allowed? Perhaps, if you were reincarnated as the keeper of time herself…The hanyou sincerely tried to listen to the rest of her spiteful reminiscence, but in truth he would rather go through that night all over again, with all the pain and hurt and terror magnified tenfold than learn about things better left unsaid.

"You like that Sango girl, don't you."

"What?" He tried to shout, forgetting about his physical state, and ended up coughing the word out in a less-than-languid tone.

"You protect her. You talk to her. You're always with her." Kagome pouted. The strange got stranger. Now she was acting like a tangible being; and a jealous one, at that.

"You…can't NOT protect…the only one you have left…you just can't…"

Kagome-hime was close to tears again. "Then how come when it was only me and you, alone, all those lives ago… How come…you didn't protect me?"

-

In the Moon Garden

Morning, Sengoku Jidai

Sango stepped out into the ocean. The sea bream tickled her ankles as it flowed around her, and she unconsciously curled her toes to keep the heat in, sand sneaking in between the crevices dividing them. She swirled around a rope of kelp with her feet, and skipped further into the sea. Edging along the rocky coast, she clung to the precipice, salted air whipping her loose hair back.

There was no surf on the other side of the cliff, with small pools of water calmly residing. A long time ago, chichi-ue showed me a place like this, thought Sango. Stepping off the edge, she crawled along the slippery boulders, cutting her hands and knees. She gasped a little as a frigid wave lapped over her, soaking her clothes with freezing water, her cuts stung with salt. She closed her eyes against the tear-bringing gales of harsh crystals, bowing her head low to avoid the full brunt of the wind. Looking down, the small pools below her teamed with colorful bursts of life. Anemones, small worms, and bite-size crabs settled along the bottoms. Frills of coral framed the painting. Sango smiled at its beauty. She could kneel there forever staring at the sea creatures, but she heard someone calling what she thought was her name.

She looked back to the beach, almost hidden from view, and saw a youkai calling out to her, arms crossed in exasperation, loose clothing and lengthy tresses tossed around in the ocean breeze. He obviously wanted her to come to him, though she did not know how she could know. And how would she get there? The way she had taken to get to the tide pools was war more treacherous on the way back…

Feeling daring, with a touch of defiant attitude for which she thought nothing could go wrong, she jumped into the waves on the side of the stone barrier she had come from, strong arms pumping her body through the water. Luckily the tide was coming in, she realized, or she would have had trouble.

The hanyou trudged out almost tetchily to meet her, grabbing her arms and lifting her up roughly from the water in mid stroke. Sango didn't dare look up and meet his eyes. She had just had the damnedest feeling that her clothes stuck to her body revealingly, and that she was shivering uncontrollably with cold. She tried to pull away, but he held tight, pulling her into his arms and hugging her. She stopped shivering, nestled between his clothes. He was so warm… I…can't… This isn't…

They stood like that for a long while, Sango's breathing catching in her throat as she tried to swallow, volleying between wanting to stay like that longer and wanting to tear away. It was strangely pleasant…but wrong! Wrong in so many ways…

The wind whipped up again, and his outline blurred, smeared away by the gale. The colors of his garments flew away from her grasp, replaced by blue silk. Oh gods… Sango screamed, pushing away with noticeably more force than she had tried to escape the hanyou's hug with, twisting away violently and falling backward, submerging her face unexpectedly for a moment, causing her to breathe in water.

The moon goddess came nearer, and gently lifted Sango up into fresh air. Sango's only reaction was to scream louder, scared that she might anger a god, and even more scared that the Kagome-hime that stood before her was, in fact, not a god at all, and would kill her after rescuing her.

A few words flitted into her head meaninglessly, and she tried to remember exactly who was it that said them. They had been said prior to her thoughts, by someone she thought she knew well, but not to her.

At that moment, Sango jerked awake, almost falling over as she became fully aware of her surroundings, and that fact that she had slept sitting, as she tried to stand and felt her legs and neck seize up in cramps and aches.

It took her a while to recall exactly why it was she was camped in a forest alone. With the abrupt unpleasantness of waking up in the morning and remembering something increasingly important—which was, in a way, exactly what she did—she realized that the hanyou she had been with was gone.

"H-hanyou?" She stuttered, calling out to the trees with a false glimmer of hope. "Please…" Don't leave me alone. Please… She scrambled along the perimeter of the campsite, paying special attention to his side of the campfire. When she caught sight of the now strangely well-trodden slope, slicked with long grass and matted with the unmistakable sight of blood, her heart skipped a beat and she cried out, "Answer me! Where? Where are you?" Panic soaked in again, so soon after her disheartening dream.

Please no please no please no…not alone…all alone… She stopped her anguished thoughts long enough to reason out all the possibilities. Well, he could have miraculously healed, leaving me to fend of myself while he easily made his escape…unlikely. He could have been eaten by a larger youkai…very unlikely. She tried to imagine a youkai even CLOSE to being of a size large enough to do so lingering in a forest like this and being able to survive and failed.

All the other possibilities were much worse, so she continued her panic-stricken review of the forest. She skidded at the edge of the slope, crouching low enough to wipe the blood from a few of the leaves on the ground. Tears prickled her eyes as she wiped her fingers on the fibers of her sandals. Was she really alone now? Where are you, haha, chichi, Kohaku, Mujina… Where are you?

"You won't find anything down there."

Sango blinked, wiping the tears away with the sleeve of her kosode as she turned around, still slumped on the ground. She tried to hide her relief rather unsuccessfully when she saw the hanyou standing there on the other side of the campground. Alive and whole, albeit much more strained and tired-looking than she imagined she would ever see. He was still with her.

"Why are you crawling on the ground like that? Get up. We need to get out of here." He stated evenly, walking toward her. He knelt down so close to her she could feel his body heat. Again.

"U-um…about last night…" Sango muttered. She felt so stupid. And what was that dream all about, now that her mind was free from apprehension. She couldn't help but remember and draw certain connections between then and now.

He wrenched her up savagely, and Sango fixed her gaze momentarily on dried blood, grotesquely encrusted on the sleeve of his kariginu. She glanced back down the rise, catching the distinct whiff of coppery blood on him and wondered if it was indeed his of the aforementioned spread on the dew-wet grass.

"Nothing happened."

Sango didn't say anyting, merely nodded, wiping a stray thread of sinuous plant veins from her apron. "Yes. We should go now."

For a while, there was nothing. Not joy, not sadness, nor fatigue. Nothing. The twosome walked a fair distance between each other, completely silent. Sango thought maybe she should ask him exactly where they were going, but eventually decided against it. For some reason, she didn't think he would be all that thrilled to bother being interrogated by her. He seemed fine, more or less, but not OVERLY energetic, for sure. She was sure that he would have been bounding along the tree boughs, far ahead of her, sniffing out the exit with alacrity. But instead he walked in front of her, slowly yet purposefully, barely disturbing the peace in the heart of the forest. He appeared to be a lot surer of himself now, though. What exactly happened while she slept that night, anyway? Definitely not 'nothing'.

Just short of fifteen minutes later, a firm hand gripped her shoulder, pulling her backwards by the back of her kosode. "Keep going and you'll slip," the hanyou cautioned, stopping her just before she walked right off a low ledge. It wouldn't have hurt to fall and slide the distance, but it certainly would have been embarrassing, Sango thought, then looked ahead to see the trees beginning to thin out, revealing vaguely familiar landmarks.

"I didn't realize the end of the forest was so soon," She replied, taking a few more quick steps backwards. "How come it took so long before? This is the field between the Taiji Village and…Niwatori Village." Home again? But—augh! Now she was confused. The moon garden, and then…so they were just in the forest of pheasants the whole time? "Why couldn't I tell we were so close? I-I've lived here all my life and-"

Shrugging, the hanyou leapt down the knoll fluidly. The landing was a little off though—his knees buckled beneath the pressure of his jump and his weight, and he fell to the ground sideways.

Sango ended up sliding down the hill anyway. "Hanyou!" She shouted, scrambling towards him. She knelt over him, reaching out a hand to help him up.

The hanyou swatted her away, smacking her cleanly on the cheek. Sango recoiled, bringing a hand up to her stinging face. "How…dare you…after all I went through for you!"

"While you may have developed certain FEELINGS, I for one don't ever want to see you again after we're through with this!" The hanyou barked, grimacing as he pulled himself up. Fresh blood soaked his clothes, and he clutched the sleeve, pulling it tight.

"Push, push, push, that's all you ever do! You're pushing yourself too hard, pushing me away, pushing everything back! Why in all the heavens and hells do you do that?" Sango argued in exasperation.

"Go away. Go back to that slayer's village of yours. I got you through the forest, and I'm done now." He turned his back on her and started walking in the direction of Niwatori.

"If anyone got anyone through that, I don't know who it was, bur for sure it wasn't you! I don't seem to recall any immediate help from you at all, so stop putting me down!"

The hanyou pretended to ignore her, picking up his pace a little and crossing his arms in an annoyed gesture as he always did.

"Listen to me!" Sango called after him, running up to match his stride.

"No."

This continued until they reached the gigantic crystallized youkai horde, with Midoriko's captured body in its jaws. Sango broke off in mid-sentence when she saw, putting a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. "What…is that?" She breathed in amazement. Peering closer at the pillar of encased memories, only one word came to mind. "Midoriko-sama."

The hanyou slit his golden eyes against the glare of early morning sunlight of the same hue, reflecting off the statue. "That Kagome bitch's Midoriko doll wanted the sword," he said, almost to himself. "I think the real one will need it too. She might…be able to cross into the next world more easily now." Drawing the blade with such force that Sango actually stepped backwards, afraid he might turn around and start hacking at her with it, he held it up in front of him for a moment, gazing at his reflection in the lustrous metal for the last time before sinking the blade deep into the eroding hillside, so deep only a hand's-width of the actual blade showed above the dirt. Afterwards, he just stood there for a long time, staring out in front of him at nothing in particular, unless he found the grass to be unusually thought provoking.

Sango stayed silent for the first bit, out of respect for the late miko, but once the hanyou made to move on once more, Sango blurted out, "We came all this way just to give a sword to a dead woman?"

The hanyou gave her a glare that dripped with the same killing toxicity as Kagome-hime's earlier threats to Liem Shi Hua. With equally deadly softness, he added, "No one said you had to come."

Sango's mouth dropped open at his boldness, sputtering, but managed to get out, "Ah, it doesn't matter anymore. Can we go back now?"

"What makes you think I'm going 'back'? There's not reason to be staying over there. You've caused enough trouble for me as it is. I don't need to stay around anymore to help you get out of your little predicament."

"I think it's YOUR 'predicament'. It's around you whom all of this revolves, if you would take the time to use that brain of yours and think about it." Sango admonished coldly—he was really pushing her tolerance to the limit.

That got him. It was so true. So a short argument and hike later, they ended up sharing the most extravagant meal that Sango's paltry bartering could buy in Niwatori Village. In short, not much. The hanyou ended up giving his ration of dried fish and millet gruel sprinkled with nori to the ravenous Sango anyway, since he claimed he wasn't hungry and could get MUCH better later. It was the last part that provoked Sango into taking the food willingly.

"So…" They were together on the veranda of a dusty merchant home, in the food district of Niwatori's market. The hanyou lazily dangled his feet from the small ledge, just to spite Sango, who was seated with her feet tucked beneath her politely as she sipped her soup gratefully. "Do you think I'll be missed?"

"What?" He stirred, half-asleep on his sunny perch.

"Do you think anyone noticed I was missing?" Sango repeated, blowing an even stream of steam from her bowl and fanning the broth to cool it.

"Keh! Of course. You taijiya are all pretty close, up there in that damn village, aren't you? And you have that annoying friend."

"The others would only assume I had been asked to slay a demon for a nearby village. And Mujina, well…she's not exactly thinking that I'm the most gracious person in the world at the moment."

"What's this? Our 'wonderful' Sango has fallen into a vale of self-pity?" The hanyou scoffed, giving her a cocky glance. "One night out in the wilds and you're tired and want to stop?"

That's you, that's you THAT'S YOU! She wanted to scream, but she calmly opted for a more docile reply. "You know, I really don't need you. I can leave anytime I want so start treating me better or I'll see to it that the remainder of your days—which are numbered already, mind you—are absolutely miserable." The words came too easily to put her at ease. She said ones to a similar effect to Mujina all the time.

"You're the one who followed me all the way out here." The hanyou pointed out. "No one's asking you to stay."

Very true. "Look, we're not getting anywhere. Let's start over."

"Let's not."

Sango scowled at him. Uncooperative bastard… "All right. We won't talk at all after this. You can pretend you don't even know me." She glanced meaningfully at the passerby, who turned their heads suspiciously at the sight of a taijiya and a youkai conversing more or less non-savagely.

"But let me make one point—I don't need anyone to protect me. I could have done much better alone than with you. I don't need looking after, and I don't need to be told what to do by the likes of you! I already know!" Sango raised her voice, causing the tender of the stall they had bought their food from to turn his head curiously.

Dead silence. She could hear her own words echoing. They seemed to affect him much less than Sango thought they would, since he had a youkai's foolish pride, but maybe that was just her being presumptuous. Maybe he wasn't even listening. So much for a dramatic effect. Thinking back quickly, maybe she was being more forceful than necessary. She could feel a hot, fevered blush creeping into her features for a reason she could not fathom, so she turned away quickly, clenching her fingers around two large wads of fabric from her apron. "But it felt nice to know that there was someone that would do that for me."

That got his attention. "W-what—what makes you think…" The hanyou stammered, scooting away in embarrassment.

"You're the one who kept complaining that you had to look out for me. Just saying thanks for the thought, is all," Sango said tentatively, brushing hair back from hiding part of her face as she looked back up at him.

The hanyou paused, comtenplating what she just said. His only response was another haughty, "Keh!"

"That's one your redeeming features, you know." Sango said blandly. "Always so impersonal."

Meanwhile, he couldn't believe his good fortune. Kagome-hime's words still resounded at the back of his mind.

Find her strength.

And she had brought the topic up herself, albeit in the form of sarcasm. "What's you best feature?" Shit. That sounded…strangely lecherous…

Sango didn't seem to think so, and if she did, she hid it. All he got was a quick, "I have none!" and she smiled the conversation away.

If that didn't prove disheartening, the next thing she said did. '"Let's talk about you!"' was to be the second most depressing thing he had head all day—and it was only noon, damn it.

"No, let's not."

Sango treated his statement as if it had not been said at all, so well that he wondered if maybe he imagined saying the words out loud. "So, where were you born?" When all she got was a non-submissive stare, she added, "I'll answer every question I ask you for myself too."

"I dunno."

"Me? The Taiji Village, of course." Great, he was lapsing on her again. Just when she thought they were getting somewhere, back to square one and the terrors of short, useless answers. She asked another question. "Where did you live then, before I met you?"

In Niwatori, I guess… Instead, he said, "Nowhere."

Gah, not just any short answers. Evasive ones, at that. Maybe if she directed her questions to a more warrior-like topic. "What is your most hated enemy?"

"Life."

"Oh." That's…interesting. "Then how come you put up with it so much? Wouldn't it be easier just to –"

"I'll NEVER get down on my knees and beg for mercy. Only damned cowards to that. Besides, I like doin' things the hard way." If there was a darker side to this halfling, it had just shown its colors once more. He leered at her. "Gets people really fucked up."

Sango sat in resolve for a moment, and the hanyou took advantage of her quiet and said, "I'm going to ask YOU a question now."

"Er…okay."

"Why are you asking me these stupid questions?"

Sango blushed. "'Cause I want to know the answers. Only one more—I promise." she pleaded.

The hanyou grunted. "Whatever."

"You told me you had a name earlier, but you wouldn't tell me what it was. So what I want to know is, do you really have a name?"

Before he had time to even think about lying, he blurted out, "No."

Sango seemed a little surprised. "Really."

"Whatever you want to think—don't matter to me."

"Haha-I mean, my mother, always said that Riie, our midwife, instructed that her children be named immediately after birth, lest their spirits leak back into hell, unchained by identity." Sango repeated almost word for word, closing her eyes with authority.

"Well, uh…" The hanyou shifted uncomfortably, well aware that Sango could feel his uneasiness, and looked away, pretending to be preoccupied by an enticing speckle of mud wiped on the wall.

"How about I give you a name, Inuyasha."

Not giving me much choice, are you now, was his first reaction.

He stared at her for a moment, and she smiled brightly. Her stomach was full, she knew where she was, and she thought that maybe—just maybe—she had a new friend.

'Inuyasha'. He liked that.

-

Niwatori Village

Sengoku Jidai

Mujina licked her lips distastefully as she walked along the many mercantile stalls spread out along the streets of Niwatori. Jewelry? Junk. Tools? Crap. Weapons? Useless. Herbs? Too many already. Isn't there anything to EAT here? She grumbled, passing over the stall with 'buckets of live eel for roasting at home—a fresher taste!', or so the merchant claimed.

Then she saw something that made her think that maybe she wasn't so famished after all.

Sango was in the village, which would have been wonderful if that was all that it was, but she was with that—that—YOUKAI. She gritted her teeth huffily as she watched them. They weren't even DOING anything, really, just talking; she didn't know why she was so mad all of the sudden, but gods almighty, she was. She ducked into one of the stalls, much to the annoyance of the owner of the market space, and watched silently, sputtering with spontaneous rage.

They were too close to each other, she thought. No, HE's too close to HER. Why doesn't Sango just pull a fast one and kill him now? He's too intrusive. She's too good for you, bastard youkai. Get away frorm her.

The hanyou had 'abash' written all over his face, and Mujina sneered. Sango had obviously bested him in something. Mujina's grin dissolved, however, when Sango began to laugh. SHE couldn't make Sango laugh—why could he?

Finally, the hanyou slowly stood to make his leave. Mujina snorted a sigh of relief. It's about bloody time. Oh for the love of sanity, Sango was getting up too—surely she wasn't planning to leave with him? No! She was getting closer to him…they were touching ki, for the sake of the gods. What the fuck-

Sango was whispering, pulling the fuzzy white dog-ear down to her words. They were both smiling. Cynically, but they were doing the same thing—together! That simply was NOT allowed! At least in Mujina's world.

Eew, Sango was STROKING his arm! Sango, why? Mujina cringed is despair. This was just too much idiocy. Phew, he pulled it back. He's in pain? Why? Because she stroked his arm?

With no effort for haste, he walked away, without so much as a backward glance. Mujina breathed a sigh of relief, as did the shopkeeper whose space she had invaded as she tried to nonchalantly greet Sango. "Yo."

Sango jumped, glancing guiltily at Mujina. "Did you—"

Mujina rolled her eyes, pointing an accusing finger at her friend. "How stupid do you think I am? You can't disappear on the same day every month, at the same time, and be gone for the same amount of time and not have anyone notice!" She stomped right up to Sango, until she could literally feel Sango's upset breathing blowing into her face.

"But I…does my father know too?" Sango asked, stomach knotting in apprehension.

"Peh, of course not. Unless I tell him." Mujina shrugged, indicating that she just might do so.

"Mujina," Sango pleaded. "What do you have against him?"

"'Him'? Who?" Mujina pouted. "If you mean that damned filthy, sneaking, dangerous, pathetic hanyou, gee, I don't know!" Mujina shouted, causing many people to turn around and walk in the other direction just to avoid being in the middle of what Sango was in.

"Mujina, you're being unreasonable. When you deserted me at the Tama Shrine yesterday…" she paused. Was it really only yesterday? "Yes. When you left me to be with Koichi, he helped me get back home."

"Sango…" Mujina reasoned. "You don't need a guide to get back to Taiji Village from the fucking Tama Shrine."

The taijiya stuck her lower lip out in exasperation. "You don't know what happened, so why do you care?"

"Fine! I don't care, then. I'll just take my Koichi baby and leave you two alone." Mujina snorted sarcastically. "I guess since you're in LOVE now I don't matter anymore. It figures."

Sango didn't say anything, shaking with anger and hurt. Hot tears threatened to spill over and roll down her cheeks, but she held it in, incapable of speech because of it. Love? Last month she would have denied it without a second thought, but a lot had happened. "You're…the one who forgot about me." She managed to get out, biting her lip to keep from crying. It was never fair, was it?

Mujina tore relentlessly at Sango. _I want you to be miserable. I want you to realize I'M right. I want you to feel what I did when I found out you would rather be with someone ELSE. _"I'll bet that you two are planning on eloping and getting married in the far north. I'll bet that you were planning to ditch me all along! I'll bet that you were faking it all those years just to make yourself look better! I'll bet YOU killed your own mother! She was my haha too—it was nicer when she was around!" Mujina snarled, hitting anything she thought Sango would react negatively to.

Sango stood her ground, snapping upright and strolling calmly down the street back out of Niwatori Village.

Mujina gaped in awe, looking up at the sky forlornly for a moment, knowing that this time, she had gone too far. _Sango-chan…_

Alone in the Niwatori woods, Sango fell to the ground, hiding herself in the soft grass and sobbing mirthlessly_. No one can see me. No one can make fun of me. No one can convict me. No one can comfort me. _

Her mantra was true, no one would tell her though, that someone WAS watching. And that same someone was realizing just what went on in her mind.

_Find her strongest emotion._

_Only then will you be free._

-end chapter ten

-

NOTES: The last part was narrated strangely because it was a third-person narrative for Mujina, in case anyone was wondering…and Inuyasha and Sango's interaction with each other was given through Mujina's sadly…warped perspective. Also a little bit of my sad attempts at humor… I think it's classified as 'author humour'…

On Kagome-hime/Inuyasha blah blah: "Find Sango's best feature". That came out sounding like it was shoddily translated from Japanese or something. Oh well. It can't be helped. It can only be described as her 'strongest emotion', or 'most noteworthy quality'. It will be explained in more detail in chapter 13 or so.

INUYASHA! WHOOO! I CAN CALL HIM THAT NOW! IT WAS ANNOYING! (I'm sure you thought so too.)

Welp, I tried. I really did. Romantic? Not really. I tried to put some more in before Ch. 16 (originally chapter 7 in my oldest outline, but somehow this story…exploded in size.)

Thank you everyone!

Kalliel

カリエル


	11. Over and Over

&Ascension of the Spirit

By Banana Rum: Kalliel

ICYGIRL: Thank you so much! Good as usual, though? Have you been around before? I don't remember you…

Yakashakarakamugiyaga Kagome: Congrats for being the only person with a name longer than their review!

SpikeSmeagleSparklies: **-**blush- Everyone is so nice, I feel guilty for being away so long!

SexySango: I'm afraid you will be disappointed. I cannot write fluff to save my life. ;;

Mysteries Abound: I LOVE your reviews. If I really wanted to, I would go back and redo this whole story, but it's doomed already, so it doesn't matter.

ElshA: Yes, the one and only Shi Hua. And of course Kagome-hime is creepy. She's better this way though, in my eyes.

Elinor: Haha, I like rhymes!

Moggy: I am ESPECIALLY sorry to you! I died for over a month… I feel that way too. Let's be friends! Haha, that sounded really lame, but I'm serious.

Zacckbum: That is just insulting, in a Zackkbum-y kind of way. LOLO. Eh, whatever. At least you read it, right? And btw, you shouldn't ditch your readers. I think at least Moggy here would like to see a new chapter of "A Path in Life"…Thank you for putting me on your friends list! I would ;)

Horse-crazy-gurl: I AM SO SORRY! And no, Ascension is not going to be anything over 20 chapters (considering this started out as a four chapter fic, that's scary). I would seriously commit suicide if I had to write something as long as 100 chapters. Unless they were all 100 word drabbles… And you know what? I just realized I spelled your name wrong in the summary.

Disclaimer: There is a reason this is called fanfiction…

Beta read by Kikyo-the-walnut/Zora…who got a huge b-day present from me…and who seeks the holy grail.

Chapter 11: The Legend of the Taijiya Princess/To That Which the Wind Seeks/Memories That Recur

Elsewhere 

There was once a young maiden living with her family in a small village in the mountains. They were very poor, because there was no place to fish and they couldn't farm rice, the most profitable good. All they could do was make weapons out of rocks and rejected demon parts.

_But no one needed weapons, except in times of war against the middle kingdom. All the neighboring districts were allies, and it was a long time in between wars, since the middle kingdom lay across the sea._

_The villagers were starving, and they could no longer fend off of the scant vegetation on the mountain. They would be forced to leave their homes and become beggars in the streets of a new city, as no one would take them into their homes for fear of bringing strife to the family._

_Then one day, the young woman got lost on the way home. She spent the night in a cave, crying. But then she met a youkai. She was afraid at first, but the youkai was a benevolent spirit, and asked her to kill it so she could eat and keep warm with its skin. Obviously, this horrified the maiden, but she wanted to see her mother and father again so badly, she took the demon's offer._

_The next day, the villagers were praying for her safe return. Someone saw a youkai coming toward the village, and the rest of the people were terrified. They knew they could not stand up to such awesome power, and prepared to die. But then, the little girl popped out of the fur, surprising everyone._

_She said that a kind demon had given all of them hope. The rest of her people couldn't believe her. But she said that they could slay demons for a living around the province. They tried their hand at it, and were successful. Their skill grew, and they became the most prosperous town in all of the land. Leading them into light was that same girl, whose beauty shone as bright was the gleam of the sun's rays smiling down on her people._

_Life continued. But then, the 'taijiya', as they had come to call themselves, grew too eager to kill the youkai. They took every request in the area, and killed even the most harmless creatures._

_One night not long after a difficult spar with a demon, the ghost of the very first youkai came to the princess. _

_"Taijiya-hime," it sobbed. "Your family has delighted in the slaughter of my sisters and brothers. I meant for it to be a last resort, and you have taken my gratitude and stretched it to fit your greedy needs."_

_Instead of killing her, the ghost turned her into the same kind of youkai it was. "If they are truly careful and care for their livelihood, they will know it is you, princess."_

_The next morning, the taijiya woke up, and saw a small demon with a miserable expression on its face, which was streaked with tears._

_They didn't notice. They killed her without question, and celebrated another victory._

_The taijiya princess joined the ranks of demons her comrades had slain, and visited every one of her people in their dreams. She told them of her error. The next day, the village burned to the ground, taking everyone inside with it. The princess wept tears and put it out before it came to destroy the youkai's lairs in the forest nearby._

_And since then, all taijiya have followed a code. One of reserve, fairness, and compassion. And in every child's mind, the threat of becoming a tragic spirit has haunted their dreams to the point where they would rather commit dishonorable suicide than break the code of the taijiya._

Sango knew the rhymes, memorized the speeches Riie had always prepared for scolding, and yet, she couldn't stop her heart from beating. She was too scared to die, too scared to live in the shameful shadows of the youkai.

So who would she turn to?

_In Between_

_Sengoku Jidai_

The thought of being able to create sound was nonexistent, unimaginable. Silence overtook, stealing time for only thoughts and nostalgia. And in the absence of tears or laughter, there stood only one being. Among the weeds and granite, he still lingered.

Scents caught in the immortal wind whipped his face, and imbedded their essence in his skin and clothes. He closed his eyes against the gales, twitching scornfully with want. The want to fly; to ride among the winds and be their smell, not become it. But when you've run so far, the ledges stop and you can go no further by mortal means. Then where do you go? If there is someone searching for you elsewhere, do you answer their calls and come to them or lead them to believe you are an intangible desire?

He opened his eyes again. The wind had changed its tune. From west to east, then south to north, it reversed direction of its own accord. _Venture to that which the wind seeks, where 'fate' is never predetermined and magic is crushed beneath a far greater power._

He laughed a little at that, a faint, nigh indiscernible snicker that broke the silence of the country's ways. To that which the wind seeks, eh? Then who was the wind, and more importantly, who was he?

'Inuyasha', she had called him. What a fucked up name. But…he took to it. So, he was Inuyasha. What said person would do in that name, though, had yet to be decided.

He let himself slide into a hunched over seated position, head tucked into his arms with his eyes shaded from the sun. Tiredness set in, with a heaving sigh of desperation turned desolation.

For four years he had hunted down this taijiya woman, bound to her by only petty revenge (or false blame, he reminded himself, but that was only a technicality.) Four years, all for naught. And finally an opportunity had come for her death by his hand. Why not take it? Because that was what that _other _bitch wanted. _Find the strongest conviction, a simple fact and you will be free._

He hated it. Hated it, hated it, hated it. That damn princess had his life in her slimy web; she could be rid of his life whenever she felt the need to take it. How hard he had tried to keep all that was his for himself, only to be brought down by some hallucination-driven princess. Keh. He had so stupidly let her take the one thing that was everything to him.

"Idiot," he admonished quietly, skin prickling at the feeling of the air at dusk, his front warmed by the setting sun and the other half cool as the waters in the lake far below his perch. Lightheaded with upset and fatigue, he listened to the weight the breeze carried that night, heaving with the efforts of all days.

A playful whirlwind flapped amber and blood red leaves onto him, intertwining themselves in his hair and digging their stems into his neck. Mechanically, he dug them out of his mane of silver, careful not to snap the fragile leaves, sending them on their way.

_I am such a fucking IDIOT. Playing with the leaves, now._ He shifted, eyes making up colors as he looked up at the sun-flooded skies, a dazzling contrast to the darkness of his lap. He felt like shit—tired, confused, and _damn to hell if it doesn't hurt. _And he felt OLD. There were just too many mistakes for his short one hundred or so years—how could it be possible to blunder through life like that and not get killed?

Marginally aware of the forests awakening to dance under the faint glow of a freshly waxing moon, Inuyasha let himself fall to one side, head connecting with the cold stone beneath him harder than expected. A momentary outburst of profane interjections exloded, and the night became truly alive. All youkai and earthly darkness hunters swept through their domain save for him. And he really didn't give a shit. What was Kagome doing though, he wondered. Or Sango, even.

"Are you the youkai who rules here?" A small voice interrupted his thoughts.

Perhaps it was because the words would not come, or the ones that did appear were the wrong ones, but either way his visitor received no response from him.

"Hey, are you asleep or what?" The owner of the voice prodded his back incessantly. "Why don't you frolic with the other spirits? They need a leader; I know they do." She, for by now the voice was undoubtedly female, kicked him gently between the shoulder blades.

Inuyasha gritted his teeth in annoyance, by then realizing that his position, just lying there with someone behind him, was not the most easily defended. While he debated whether it was worth it to kill the prying creature or spare himself the trouble and let it humor itself, the girl spoke again.

"There was a time when you would fight when someone BREATHED near you. What happened to that?"

"Will you just leave me the hell alone?" he finally turned around, pivoting to face her angrily.

"That's more like it," The girl skipped backwards a few paces. She was wearing a pale pin kosode, its only design a trio of black cranes on the shoulder and lower right hem. Her dark, waist-length hair bobbed teasingly as he leered at her in challenge.

Inuaysha slit his eyes. She was that girl; Sango's companion. He stood up warily, gaze never wavering from her face. "What do you want?" He asked dispassionately.

"I wanna talk to you." She shrugged, folding her arms behind her back and standing on tiptoe, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet nervously while he spoke.

"About what?" He cocked his head suspiciously, stepping towards her and closing the distance between them.

"What are you to Sango?" Mujina clicked her tongue apprehensively, embarrassed by her own directness.

An image of Sango telling him EXACTLY what she thought of him flashed through his mind. "A pain in the ass." He answered truthfully for once, though a guilty grin still managed to curl across his lips.

"You know your lying." The girl stuck her head up towards his accusingly. "Who are you to be with _my_ Sango?"

"'Your' Sango? Becoming a bit possessive, aren't we?" The hanyou laughed. "Hell, take her." He turned back to the cliff edge and out over the forest, off into the distant dusk-touched fields, and began to make his leave.

"Don't even think about just walking away from me!" Mujina grabbed him by the collar, and presently he felt the cool touch of a blade resting on his neck. She tugged him closer. "Answer the damn question." The girl whispered vehemently.

Inuyasha clenched his claws around the arm that was not holding her weapon and whipped her around to his front.

She gasped in pain as her arm twisted, and lost hold of her knife, sending it clattering across the slim diameter of the cliff.

"Girl, you're not a youkai and you're not taijiya. What makes you think," he paused as he threw her down violently, "that you have even a remote chance of being able to threaten me like that?"

"I-uh…" Too late, Mujina was beginning to see some definite holes in her plans.

He continued to loom over her, waiting for an answer.

Gathering her wits once more, she lunged at the youkai. "Don't underestimate me!" Charging head on bare-handed, Mujina flung herself at his body.

He caught her with ease, the force of the blow dissipating instantly as he threw her to the ground behind him.

She rolled a few yards, and jumped to her feet once more. However, she was not counting on the ground ending, and her feet slipped out from beneath her. She screamed as she tumbled backwards, arms flailing about uselessly.

"Shit…" The hanyou wasn't about to let some random village girl die because of him, no matter how irritating she was. Flying towards the open air, he reached down, catching Mujina's arm.

Screaming again, she shouted, "Ow! That hurts! You're pulling my arm out of its socket!"

"Whine all you want, girl." He grumbled as he pulled her back up to level ground. "You owe me now."

After catching her breath, Mujina cooed, "So sentimental." She grabbed him and kicked off the bottom part of the cliff. With a sort of surprised dazedness, Inuyasha joined Mujina in descent. They had fallen close enough to the side to tumble down the slope, crashing through bushes and bouncing off rock piles all the way down. The hanyou landed with a thud, followed by a more muffled one.

"What kind of idiot ARE you!" Inuyasha ricocheted to his feet, growling at Mujina.

"The normal kind, I suppose," She shot sarcastically, calmly clearing her front of dirt by patting it vigorously and sweeping the larger particles off with a clean smack. Picking up a nearby rock, she testily launched it at his person. It missed, but it hit where she intended it to on his character.

"You think you're strong enough to mess with the demons, eh? Well, by now you know you're not, so there must be something you're not telling me." The hanyou reasoned with a sneer, shoving Mujina up against the wall of the cliffside gruffly with accent to every word. "Tell now."

Mujina spat, "No fucking way."

With that, Mujina quickly muttered the very same curse she had been perfecting when Sango had first fought Inuyasha. The strangest of gales blew up, carrying a torrent of autumn golden birds with it. Dividing the two combatants, the fowl swooped down low into the grass, clearing Inuyasha off his feet in the process.

Pheasants? The Tama Shrine that day with Sango's god-damned lunch… The day they paid a visit to the moon's garden. Involuntarily, he twitched, but turned the movement into a ragged attempt to flip back up onto his feet.

"You know Kagome-hime," he said. He wasn't about to stoop as low as directly asking her a _question _that he wanted the answer to.

"Maybe." Mujina grinned devilishly. "Do you?"

Ignoring her comment、he scowled. "Why in all the hells would someone like her stoop to a bratty human like you?" Inuyasha asked suspiciously.

Mujina snickered. "She's only a fucking whore and you know it."

Inuyasha lunged forward, attempting to grab Mujina by the neck and strangle her.

And surprisingly, Mujina let him.

"Can anything holy come out of your mouth for once? I'm actually getting tired of you now. You're training to be the village healer, with all the witchcraft shit, but you're just so—"

"Bitchy?" Mujina suggested, and Inuyasha tried to squeeze more air out of her lungs.

Finally, out of complete and utter disgust, Inuyasha released her, withdrawing and perking up his ears. There was someone coming.

_The Forest_

_Sengoku Jidai_

A shuffling ball of ratty clothing waddled with a tired gait. The only evidence that it was a human at all was the woven basket on her back as she bent over, looking for edible vegetation on a rocky knoll. An old village woman, actually.

Eying a patch of mushrooms, she hurried over to them and hastily discerned the good from the poisonous. She had to hurry, before it became to dark and the youkai from the forest took her. Scooping up the last of her load, she shrugged her densely woven basket higher onto her shoulders and started toward her village, nervously wishing that the sun was not already fading from the sky.

And on top of that, it was raining. A silent curtain of water had sprung up, to everyone's mild surprise. It was the type of shower that quieted the animals, and chased the wind away. Stretching her ears to their waning extent, she listened for youkai approaching. Her mother and grandmother had always told her that if she stayed to long in the forest at night, she would not come out. And it was true. Sasami, the young weaver's apprentice, had left to gather plants for dyes, and was supposedly killed in this very forest.

The other rumors, of course, were worse. It was said that the demons had found Sasami too repulsive to satisfy their hunger, because she had run away from her apprenticeship and made love to a traveler.

Whatever the truth was, it was of no importance at the moment, for she heard arguing voices. Perhaps it was Sasami and her beloved? The old woman cautiously approached the area where the shouting was loudest. If she returned with the news that Sasami was alive, she would be a hero. But if it was not them, she would die. But then, she reasoned, she was old, and what need would she have of the remainder of her life, wasting away with illness and pain? No, it would be best to end it quick and clean.

With those thoughts in mind, the hag shouted, jumping from behind a bush in hopes of startling the squabbling twosome, "Go home! Begone! Return to your master!"

Indeed, it had not been Sasami and the merchant. Not in the least.

"What the hell?" The first dropped the phrase from his mouth.

_Demon, _the old woman noted, the fear and realization not quite registering in her slow mind.

"Just fuck off, old woman. Get lost before I kill you."

Ai-ya! That was worse! Hell's guardian itself! The old woman yelped, before turning back towards her hamlet and wobbling, screaming protection 'charms' for warding off evil spirits all the way.

Laughing a little, Mujina turned to the other person. "She's going to call someone to have us exterminated for sure."

"Eh…so?" Inuyasha grunted, retaining his veneer of nonchalance. "It's their death."

Mujina kept laughing. This began to get irritating. It wasn't a hard chuckle, but it was level and constant, like someone who knew that the world was doomed and lacked the heart to cry. "The demon slayers are out tonight; I saw them preparing for their nighttime rounds in this area before I left. How sure are you it will be 'their death'?"

"I _really _hate you."

"So do I."

_Taiji Village_

_Sengoku Jidai_

Sango wasn't as oblivious as her fellow villagers thought she was. Oh, she was well liked, for her usually complacent disposition and technique as a fighter, but there were rumors, and now that she was of marrying age, she appeared to be the favorite topic of gossip in the market, at the well, and wherever else the village women chose to spread her influence.

That's what she was doing now—listening to a few of the lowly concubines exchanging news and wives' tales just outside her room. The nerve of them! Whether she was supposed to be home or not, what if someone from the household heard? Maybe that was what they wished to happen.

"Do you think Mistress Sango is in full health?"

"Of course. Why do you ask?"

"She's not been helping in her share of the chores. When she isn't doing the slaying, she is either out, or playing with the village children! That's a job fit for a younger child, like my Maki-chan."

"Yes!" Another agreed. Sango cringed. For once, it wasn't a falsity. "Just because she is the headman's daughter doesn't mean she should be able to stand idle while the rest of us work day and night!"

A younger woman's voice chimed in. Sango recognized it as that of Hatsuko, a girl she was frequently paired with during the cleaning of the village. "When she does work, she makes so many mistakes! Like she's too important to have to pay attention!"

"Fool! You yourself do the same, and you're no more important!" Ugh. Sango buried her face in the coarse sheets of the futon. Her stringy, wet hair dripped onto the polished wood floors and created beads of water sprinkled on the dull surface.

A fifth gossip-woman joined in the banter. "Maybe she's in love."

Unbeknownst to Sango, the others blushed, covering up their giggling mouths with their hands. "I wonder who the lucky man is," One brave girl commented.

"It doesn't matter, does it? The practice is that the headman's daughter enters one of them arranged marriages, right and proper."

The women fell silent for a spell, until Hatsuko, under the impression that since she was allowed to join in such talk, she was above other girls her age, whispered, "Poor sweet, stubborn Sango. She'll never live if she has to become a _real _woman like the rest of us. Too wild."

"And what in all the world does that have to do with anything?" The first speaker announced loudly as Matsu walked by, afraid he might have overheard more of their conversation. They needn't have worried, since no one but the other servant girls bothered listening.

"Maybe it's better for everyone if she has an arranged marriage. It'll teach her how to be a proper wife." The others nodded in agreement, and went back to drawing water from the curiously busy well, conversation exhausted.

Matsu lurked around the main room in the household for a while before entering the sleeping room to meet Sango. He carefully set his shoes down in an exact line in the greeting area and wandered in circles aimlessly, pretending to examine the cracks in the floors. He was hoping that his daughter would come out to greet him.

When she did not, however, he sighed in defeat and knelt down next to the lump in the bed that was his child.

"Welcome home, Sango."

Silence.

"I'm not going to ask where you were; it doesn't really matter, does it?"

_Maybe it does. Oh, I don't know, the moon kingdom? And did I mention it was with a youkai as well? _Sango thought miserably. Their little adventure had been trying enough, but when she got home, she realized just how many of the taijiya's codes and honors she had broken. If anyone found out…

"Are you tired?" Matsu shifted his position so that he could see her face. It wore a combination of listlessness and guilt. He brushed back the loose strands of freshly washed hair and laid them in a coiled pile on the futon, instead of dragging onto the floor. She didn't answer again. Her mouth curved gently downward in a slight frown, her strong features spoiled with a grim attitude.

Residing in silence as well, Matsu began to move his hands in soothing whirlpools on her lower back. It was as tightly wound as the tie Sango used for her hair. He kneaded the knots with an expert's sureness, stretching his strong hands up to the muscles that connected to her lower back. The knots were those of someone who overused their back strength on a daily basis, deep-running and hard to get to once the upper layer had been loosened.

Matsu kept working, and slowly, Sango relaxed, reminded of the days when she was first training and he had to repeat this procedure night after night when she complained of soreness, stiffness, and various other ailments.

After about and hour and a half, Matsu spoke again. "My taijiya sector is going to go to the eastern villages by the forest. As word has it, an old woman was attacked by two youkai wearing a human form." Matsu shook his head in obvious amused disbelief. "We could use some help, since we also need to silence the villagers and stop them from burning down the forest when trying to kill the demons themselves. Though," he added, as if in an afterthought, "You may be too weary after your trip to the unknown…"

Sango smiled. Her father, the high standing man he was, usually had to keep a neutral position. But it was just them alone now; she liked it when she was just his little girl, and he was her father, idly asking her if she would like to go to a festival or not. "Let's go, chichiue."

_The Forest_

_Sengoku Jidai_

For once in her life, Mujina was stunned into silence. And it could not have come at a better time, Inuyasha decided. Glancing at the bolts embedded far into the tree's trunk, he surmised the taijiya were very serious about their duties. And for the first time, he wondered whether Sango had really planned to ever kill him—all she had ever brought was her wakizashi, and occasionally that gigantic boomerang of hers.

Speaking of whom, was Sango there, hunting him? _Well, shit. It doesn't matter anyway. _He and Mujina were huddled between thickly vegetated tree branches, high in the canopy, keeping as silent as possible until the red and black clad slayer finally turned from their area and went to search another.

"I still don't see why I have to hide. I live in the village—how can they mistake me for a demon?" Mujina scowled, plucking wood shavings and leaves out of her hair. And it was raining now, too. Whether things could get worse or not, she was sure they definitely could, but she was not sure what it would be like if they did.

"If you move, they'll shoot at you if you're not wearing a taiji uniform." He scoffed, then added, "Besides, how would if be if they found you where a demon was supposed to have been and they never found one? They probably don't think that much of traitors, do they now."

Mujina pouted by herself after that, staying quiet for the most part. What if what he said was true? Would they throw her out? Matsu had never liked her… Fretting over the possible outcomes of her near future, Mujina kept thinking. The bad got worse, and the realities warped into vague retellings in nightmare form.

_Oh, what if they find me—then I'll get killed too, along with this fucking youkai. They'll lay our bodies side by side, and Sango will push through the crowd and cry, "That's Mujina!" She'll cry and…_ Would she? They hadn't exactly been the best of friends when they had last 'talked' in Niwatori village. _And what if she doesn't? Will they burn my body, or just feed it to the hungry ghosts? Then my spirit will wander around this forest and the old hag will really have something to report._

Involuntary tears sprung into her eyes. Oh, how tragic it would all be! She sniffed, brushing them away gently, knowing they would be her last.

Inuyasha gave her a skeptical glance before turning away quickly and scooting towards the edge of the tree limb and away from her. What the hell was she thinking about, with such a theatrical expression?

Mujina sighed. It was late, she realized. What if there really were demons of the monster kind roaming about? Gigantic balls of tentacles and eyeballs, with snakes' tongues and dragon claws, dripping with the blood of its previous meal…

He tried to sit as far away as possible from Mujina. Maybe he should just leave the girl? She was obviously imagining some 'deeper meaning' to the predicament she had gotten them in to. Just then, though, he heard a sound. Whirring and slicing, snapping the branches, weak and thick alike, it roared toward them with an increasing path of destruction, gaining speed and hinting that it would not stop until it reached its target.

Curiously enough, Inuyasha realized, he had heard that sound many times before. Not just heard, though. No, he _knew_ that sound. Keh, maybe Sango had joined her comrades for the hunt after all.

"Get out of the way!" He slammed into Mujina, still preoccupied with her dreadfully out-of-whack predictions of her future.

"What are you doing?" She exclaimed, rocking on the perch but not moving off of it.

"Move!" He shouted with more intensity, shoving her into the open air and letting her fall down to catch the next limb below it.

The Hiraikotsu, however, caught at least one of the people it was aimed at, and made contact with a sickening crack. Inuyasha only felt the pain that accompanied that, fighting to balance in the tree before blacking out and crashing to the ground below.

Sango sprinted toward her prey, sword drawn, poised to plunge into the target as soon as she drew within range. The second she got to that point, however, she smacked right into the soft earth as well.

Mujina looked around innocently.

"What'd you trip me for, Mujina?" Sango shouted, then realized who she was talking to. "And what are you doing here?"

"I didn't trip you!" Mujina assured the girl, with an unconvincing smile. "And where else would I be?"

Turning her attention off of Mujina for a moment, Sango looked over to what she had hit with her Hiraikotsu.

"And _you _said you weren't coming back!" Sango rubbed her head in confusion. What on earth was going on?

Inuyasha moaned too, for a different reason. He ordered himself to open his eyes, stand up, anything, but somehow, none of those messages made it to his brain. Finally, he managed to at least prop his upper body up, glaring at Sango and Mujina.

"Are you all right?" Sango asked, embarrassed. "You shouldn't—"

"What in hell's name do you think you're doing?" He retorted, massaging his cheek. _Lucky my jaw's not fucking _broken, _damn it! _He spat out the blood accumulating in his mouth with disgust.

Mujina, feeling left out, butted in. "Oh Sango! Thank the gods you're here now! It was all his fault! Can you stop the rest of the taijiya from hurting me?" Mujina sobbed.

Inuyasha stared quizzically at her. One moment, she was threatening she would kill him, the next he was a blubbering, scared little village girl.

Sango quieted her friend easily, before saying, "What makes you think they're going to listen to me?"

"Sango—you're the headman's daughter! They can't _not _listen!" Mujina reminded her in exasperation.

"But if I said to stop, wouldn't they keep searching, since my father _is _the headman, whom they obey?" Sango reasoned.

"Besides, we already accepted the payment. The son of the old hag who saw the demon…er, saw you, wants to see the heads of the two shape-shifters that frightened his mother."

"I hate families." Inuyasha sniffed, cursing them for adding to Sango's distress as well as his own.

Mujina considered Sango's argument for a moment. "But if they don't find anything, would it be that bad? The old hag would only be branded as a hallucinatory witch."

"And how do you expect to hide from my father's men? They'll find you in this forest eventually, for sure."

"What if we're not in the forest? I know a way to the mountains so we can get back home."

Sango gaped for a moment. "And how do you know about _that?_"

"You would too, if you remembered. But I didn't think you would. Sango's too _important _to be playing with stupid little girls." Mujina didn't wait for an apology, sarcastic remark, or an excuse. Of course Sango wouldn't remember; _she _was too busy learning how to be a taijiya, so Mujina had to play with Kirara in said cave. Which was, after Kirara went off by herself, a very lonely experience. "I'll hurry up and leave by myself now. Go back to demon slaying," she glared at Sango, "and you…" She paused, glancing at Inuyasha. "You can do whatever it is you do."

"That kind of took the edge off of your little goodbye." Inuyasha remarked blandly.

Mujina kept walking, ignoring the comment.

"Why aren't you going with her?" Sango asked Inuyasha.

"Why should I?"

"We're still trying to find a youkai to kill in this forest, stupid!" Sango covered her face in despair. Idiot!

"You really expect me to run away from your 'family'? If they don't listen to you, how much do you think they trust you?" Inuyasha settled himself against the roots of the tree he and Mujina had been situated in, looking as if he did not plan on moving until the need arose, or the taijiya came.

"Are you trying to say you don't trust me?" Sango slumped down next to him, biting back a sob of frustration. Why did he have to be so pettily stubborn? "That whole time in the moon garden! I was scared to death that we weren't going to live through that! I could have run away that night; found my own way out. But I stayed with you. Do you know why?"

"You were fucking scared," He muttered, as if it was a well-rehearsed argument.

"Scared of what?" She choked on the words, spitting them out with her last efforts. What was she getting so worked up over? Because she couldn't handle him anymore? When no response to her question came, she sobbed, "I was afraid I was going to lose _you_, damn it!"

Inuyasha tried to hide the surprise from his face, thinking he was at least partially succeeding but in actuality, for the most part, failing dismally. "What…?"

Sango buried her face in his shoulder, surprising him further.

"I thought you were going to _die_, okay? But you wouldn't know how that feels—to lose someone you care for, because you're such a—a—"

"Shut up."

"Sango jumped up. "Me? _Me? _ You want me to shut up? You're the one who's so—" Sango took a breath to calm herself as best she could. "You shut up. We're going to follow Mujina _right now." _The last two words were like a slap to the face.

Dumbly, he sat in stunned silence and didn't object when Sango pulled him so his feet and they began to run after Mujina.

Stealth was not top-ranked among their priorities. Crashing through still water, already gathering on the ground, and plants alike, Sango only hoped the rain would shield their noise. Finally, they caught up with Mujina, who was moping in front of the mouth of the cave. It was relatively small, in comparison with the rest of the mountains in view, and seemed to be made of mud and hillside in the beginning as opposed to rock.

She jerked her head up at the sound of them, and ran towards the two.

Without a word, the group slipped into the veiling shadows of the cave, undetected.

Oh, how wrong they were, however. It was one of the youngest men that saw them; three years three years the junior of Sango herself.

"Oi! Sango!" He shouted after them, running toward the mouth of the cave in pursuit. He arrived, out of breath and lagging, just in time to see the threesome swerve onto a sub-path and into darkness.

"Sango!" He shouted after her. "What are you doing?" His words echoed strangely throughout the chamber, flinging themselves back at him and barely reaching the ears of those meant to receive it.

"There's someone behind us," Inuyasha stopped and turned to face the sound. "He wants you, Sango."

Sango furrowed her brow with a worried thought. "Keep going."

"Are you sure? It'll be dangerous when he's alone in here." Inuyasha tested Sango.

Bastard. She glared at him, and turned away. "Keep going." She repeated.

And that is how the young slayer came to tail them in the catacombs of Mujina's cave. Darting forward, backtracking, and investigating, he knelt on the ground, following wet footprints farther into the darkness, with only a small torch. But since there was no answering bob of light, he surmised that the group of…he checked the different prints on the ground. The group of three must have no light at all. He scoffed at their idiocy. This was going to be a fun one to tell the boys that night. All-important Sango had gone venturing in a cave with that crazy villager and a youkai without any means of light. Heh.

"Sango! If you come back now, I promise not to tell anyone important that you were here!" No, not the adults or Matsu. Just 'the guys'. He shrugged to himself. Who they told was none of this business. He shouted louder. Every word seemed to be bouncing back at him and not reaching forward at all. Why was that? "SANGO!" No response but the clattering of pebbles falling that they left behind.

Had she not heard him? How come no one ever heard him? Not even at home. Gods, was he invisible or something? "Haha, I have a question." No answer. "Haha"

He slammed his fist into the wall in frustration to stave off the memories. If she had just come out the first time, she could have spared him so much trouble…and he would have been recognized for once; bringing back precious lady Sango would have merited just reward.

Then he thought though, she did lead the youkai into the cave. What was that all about? Wasn't she supposed to be turning them over to the village? He frowned. So she was betraying the taijiya! There were really no other words for it. There was no way they could actually be _friends_, right?

Now, some say it was the punch to the mountain that did it. Mujina swears it must have been the yelling. Sango would like to content herself with the notion that the mountain god did not like his intents, therefore punishing him. But Inuyasha knewit was all their fault either way, and he wasn't afraid to rub it in.

For whatever reason, the pebbles that came tumbling down grew increasingly large, and the scattered drips of rainwater finding their way from the outside into a crevice on the ceiling, grew into steady streams, carrying a curtain of topsoil down with it. Before the poor boy even knew what was happening, his entire section of the cave came tumbling down, the entrance collapsing in on itself and sending countless slabs of granite and mud from above to submerge the young taijiya man in a sea of boulders, sand, and rain.

Mujina screamed when she heard the crash. Grabbing onto Sango's arm, which was the closest means of support to her, she and Sango jumped backward in surprise. They sat in utter darkness for some time, just listening for more shouts to Sango.

"Did he…?" Sango finally spoke. On their side of the cave, only a bit of dust had fallen. It was pitch black now, without the tentative light shining in from the doorway, and the boy's torch.

"Yeah," The two girls heard Inuyasha moving toward them. "What was that about 'keep going', Sango?" He grumbled.

"I… Oh gods, I didn't want…" Sango covered her face with her hands. It was a fact, then. Nothing went right anymore. _Break rules, retribution come. _ Riie always warned, in the Chinese accented language that she had gained from her caretaker and guardian who was a Buddhist monk on a pilgrimage from the Middle Kingdom.

"Sango." Mujina soothed, though the way her voice cracked, she sounded like she was the one who needed the soothing.

"What."

"No offense, but there is really not enough time right now to be worrying about the kid." Mujina heaved her friend to her feet.

"Why would I be worrying _about _him? He's dead! I'm worrying about his family, his friends, the rest of the taijiya! What are they going to think? And if they find out how he died, what am _I _going to do?" Sango burst out.

"Well, I…yes. I suppose that is a problem." Mujina reasoned.

"Yes, it is." Sango replied testily. How come no one took things seriously anymore?

"Keep going." Inuyasha ordered.

"Are you trying to make fun of me again? I get, I get it! Dear gods, I GET IT." Sango shouted.

Inuyasha slapped a hand over her mouth. "Do you know what caused the rock slide?" Sango shook her head. "Well, then. It could have been all the fucking shouting, so be quiet. I said, 'keep going', and I _meant _keep going."

Sango nodded. "Does anyone have a light, fire, or something?"

"No. We'd have used them by now if we did." Mujina sighed. "What about your youkai friend, Sango? He should be able to see in the dark pretty well, huh?"

"Don't count on it." Inuyasha muttered. He was as lost as they were, albeit able to pick out the lumps of rock and the outlines of Sango and Mujina.

"Well, what are we going to do? It's too risky to try to dig out the entrance—that might cause even more trouble." Mujina stated the obvious, not being particularly useful.

"Shouldn't you know? You said it was your special cave, remember?" Inuyasha reminded her sarcastically.

"I've only been this far." Mujina admitted, blushing, though no one could tell in the dark. "I guess we can just keep walking in this direction."

"What? But we'll get lost!" Sango objected.

"Technically, lost is better than being starved to death because we were too afraid to go find an exit, don't you think?"

"You're such a pessimist," Sango said, but she followed Mujina's footsteps anyway.

Inuyasha followed suit as well, straining his ears to catch any other signs of movement. _Good thing the brat didn't go farther when she played. This cave is swarming with demon auras. _But where? That was the difficult part.

They walked in complete silence most of the way, the only noise the crunch of gravel beneath their feet and the ruffling of clothing as the briskly hiked through the cavern.

"Does it smell…kinda weird to you?" Mujina asked rhetorically, yelping as she sank ankle deep into a sudden puddle of putrid liquid—she wasn't exactly sure if it could be called water, at this point. It stank of rotted fish and algae, combined with the slightly nauseating stench of stone saturated with the less-than-appetizing liquid. "Something tells me this isn't good." At least this cavern was slightly lighter. It was as if a thin trickle of sun was allowed to make its way downward. If they stood close enough, they could make out each other's outlines easily.

Inuyasha stepped to the front, shielding Sango and Mujina from possible attack. His eyes darted back and forth, watching for youkai as his ears listened for a disturbance of the water.

Sango readied her wakizashi. Why, _why _did she never bring her boomerang when she didn't think she would need it? No, she had to leave it in the forest. There were so many reasons that proved that was possibly the stupidest thing she had done the entire day. Every time she left it behind, of _course _she got into unaccounted for trouble. Silently, she vowed she would bring the hiraikotsu wherever she went for the rest of her life, even if it was just to pick flowers for a shrine offering.

Finally, the beast showed itself—well, not really, since no one could truly see it, but they did hear it well enough. An inhuman shriek erupted from what sounded like its mouth, though it seemed more like it was attempting to speak though its stomach. Garbled yowls and gurgles resounded in the small chamber, the splashing of water and rush of cool air all-too-evident as it surged toward the trio.

It met Inuyasha in an explosion of sound; the monster squealed as claws ripped through its tender belly, spilling greenish swamp muck. It recoiled, lashing at the hanyou with its tail. It caught him on the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. He cried out as spikes plunged into his shoulder and pulled themselves all the way through his flesh.

Sango lunged at what she thought was the snake, but her sword only met with cold stone. She wildly swung around, and hit only air. Yelping as she felt something coiling itself around her leg, she sliced the tentacle, grabbing it and holding tight—if she kept a hold on the creature, she would know where to aim.

Inuyasha rolled out of the puddle, clutching his injured shoulder. "Guh," he panted, and threw himself at the thing once more, grabbing hold of its back. He felt the edges of a spine and thickly corded muscle. And…gills? What in all manner of youkai was this? _Damn it. _ He cursed as the snake-whatever-it-was began to dive into the ghastly pool. He gulped in a last breath of air and followed it under, scraping at the hard scales of its hide in vain, again asking himself what the hell this creature was.

Sango was pulled along too, more tentacles reaching out and taking her down with them. She hacked at them, but not as ferociously, afraid of cutting her own legs.

And then Mujina was left alone. The serpent, Sango, and Inuyasha were all underwater. She fretted silently, her first thoughts wondering what to do if they never came back. She couldn't fight; not with anyone but the village boys, anyway, and that hardly counted. The spiritual power she had learned under Riie were 'preventative medicines', things to hold back youkai, things to keep infection away, but not to cure it. Once the damage was already done, there was nothing she could do. Often, she asked Riie why, since most likely, by the time anyone realized it, the damage _was _done, and there was nothing within her power to keep it away. Now, she wished Riie had bloody told her the first time. She sunk to the ground huddled in her slightly wet clothing, and wait.

She didn't need to wait long. A dripping, mucus covered body ran towards her, attempting to shout, but coughing out slime and other disgusting materials. Of course, she screamed, thinking it was the demon that had attacked them. "Damn it, shut up and listen! If you hear Sango, tell her that I figured out what the thing is. It's a fish, and it has spikes covering its body." Then he ran back to the arena.

Mujina nodded belatedly, convincing herself that she could be helpful now that she had something to say. So when Sango did indeed come around, Mujina shouted Inuyasha's findings to her. Alas, Sango was not listening. She was yelling at Mujina, telling her to tell _Inuyasha _that _she _found out it was a squid, with many tentacles, and a _very large mouth._ Mujina just nodded belatedly again, deciding that they would figure it out themselves eventually. Maybe.

So, Inuyasha fought, all the while thinking it was a single pointy fish, and Sango carried on under the impression it was a squid.

Inuyasha, having nothing but his claws, aimed for the belly, slashing the skin to shreds and tearing out what he hoped were vital organs. The loss of sight was more vexing than an actual disadvantage, as the fish didn't appear to be able to see either. Suddenly, rubbery tentacles latched around his neck and torso, constricting so that he could barely breathe. _Since when do fish have fucking tentacles?_

Sango fared no better. With no hope of dodging the arms, she could only wait until they found her, then follow them to the body. This technique was sketchy, however. She had yet to figure out what to do if she could not could the binds away and was eaten up in that large mouth. She shuddered; that would be more painful than most other deaths. Did you get gnawed into small pieces, or digested alive?

She didn't have time to ponder further. She felt a sharp jab to her leg and screamed. Feeling for her calf, she touched scaly, slightly slimy skin, and dampness she knew was a disgusting combination of her blood and the dank water. Yanking the spike out of her leg, she screamed again, and crawled away. Vivid expressions of pain left her mouth as she dragged her leg behind her. Settling herself in a corner, she began to cry, though the sound was drowned out by the thrashing of the…whatever it was.

_I can't fight like this. I can't concentrate. I need to calm down. All I've done today is—is—cry… _She wished the world would stop turning and wait for her soul to catch up. Tentatively brushing a hand across her wounded leg, she winced, and more tears sprang to her eyes.

_Damn…_ Inuyasha cursed, fighting to draw in more air, fill his lungs so he even stood a chance at killing the creature. He stuggled to free his throat from the death grip, and failed. _I can't lose now…_ He argued with his body. He wasn't an idiot; by now he had figured out that there was definitely two different monsters, one fish and one tentacled being. He desperately wished that Sango had drawn the same conclusion. Biting down into the rubbery mass of tentacles, he chocked back the bile that rose in his throat from the taste and smell, and ripped as much of the tentacles as he could away from his body. This was a sick way to die. Kagome-hime would be disappointed that she wasn't the one to kill him.

"Sango?" Mujina cried, in answer to her friend's screams. "Sango!" She jumped up from her hiding place and sprinted toward the direction of the sound, squealing every time she stepped on a piece of detached squid part.

"Mujina," Sango whispered through her tears.

Mujina groaned inwardly. "Oh Sango, I've said this before, but now is _really _not the time for this! I want you to be the taijiya princess again. Fearless, powerful, and brave. Remember when we played that game? You were always the princess and I had to be the damsel in distress. And Kirara was the demon, remember? You can be depressed Sango later."

"Is that what you think this is?" Sango hissed. "A game? Dress-up?"

"It was a metaphor." Mujina defended herself. "And as I said, that's really not important right now. Where's the youkai?"

"He has a name, you know. And he's a half-demon, not a youkai."

"Sango, I'm going to fucking _slap _you!" She threw her hands up in the air. "Why do you have to get so touchy when it's most inconvenient?"

"Maybe it's the inconvenience that makes me touchy…" Sango reasoned, the hard edge of cynicism entering her voice. But she rose to her feet again, favoring her injured leg and holding on to the cave wall for support. "Where is Inuyasha?"

"That's what I just asked you!" Mujina wailed hopelessly.

Sango took a deep, calming breath. "Wait here, Mujina. And don't get caught." With that, she stumbled back into the fray.

Inuyasha lay in the shallow film of mucus, gasping for life like a fish out of water. Spitting out chunks of tentacle, he drew in a ragged breath, glad to be freed of the asphyxiating shackles.

He rolled onto his back and took a series of deep gasps, staring into the blackness waiting for the beast to return. He groaned, and slowly edged his way onto his feet once more, rolling his damaged shoulder. Keh.

The two monsters watched him with glee as he floundered in their domain. He was so utterly beaten and they knew it. They 'floomped' forward, for their really was no other word for the sound they made, and the one with a mouth and an actual means of digestion, the squid, since the fish was not actually a fish, but something that looked like one, opened its jaws wide as it prepared to devour him.

Sango listened in terror as both of them came down on something. "Oh…gods…" She broke down. And she had tried so hard to focus and put everything second on her priority list except getting everyone out of this cave by herself. And she didn't even get to choose herself.

"Inuyasha, I hate your slimy, inconsiderate guts!" Sango screamed.

And in that instant, the fish erupted from inside, sending bits of its skin flying throughout the cavern. She watched wildly, hoping for some glimmer of light to lead her.

"And here I was taking your 'worried' comment from earlier seriously." Inuyasha scoffed, wiping sections of fish innards from his hair.

"That's _why _I hate you!" Sango sobbed, falling onto him, unable to keep upright on only one leg. "You always have to make me feel so responsible."

_I hope she worded that the wrong way. _He thought. _She doesn't mean _I'm _a burden to _her_, does she?_

Meanwhile, the squid, only just realizing that its partner was in pieces scattered across the room, 'floomped' as agilely as possible toward them.

"Let me take care of this one." Sango grunted.

"Like hell you will, you can't even walk properly." Inuyasha pointed out bluntly.

"I _need _to, Inuyasha." Sango repeated in an explanatory tone.

"Fine." Inuyasha snapped. Turning away from her. "Get on."

"What?" Sango asked incredulously.

"Get on my back. You're going to get yourself killed if you even try by yourself." Inuyasha explained in annoyance.

"I—all right…" With a young child's insecurity, Sango gently felt for his body and eased herself onto his back, holding him tightly. It was a lopsided ride, though, because when she put her weight onto his right shoulder, he took a sharp breath. Then, she quickly snatched her hand back, rubbing the palm of her hand against itself to try and wipe the blood away. Then she felt even more guilty for having to use him as transportation. It just didn't seem right, especially when he was injured, but it was he who had offered in the first place, right?

They took off without warning, and she yelped at the jerk. It was far from the smooth rides she had enjoyed in her youth on Kirara, but it would do for the occasion. She made another silent vow not to accept anymore rides from him after this.

Drawing her sword, she was careful to hold it very high, just in case another jerk caused her to bring it to close to his person.

If they were fast enough, the squid proved to be little more than sitting bait with an exceptional amount of hands. With Inuyasha under her, Sango felt more sure, like she knew where they were in relation to the youkai at all times. She slashed at the squid's center expertly, and within minutes it suffered the same fate as its companion.

"Mujina?" Sango shouted anxiously as the beast fell, and Inuyasha directed the two of them to the direction of the answering cry.

"Are we done?" Mujina asked nervously.

Sango felt for her hand and grabbed it reassuringly. "Yes," she said, which surprised even her. Maybe it was the mood she had been in earlier, but she really didn't believe they would ever see the sun—or the moon, for that matter, as she realized with a sinking feeling that it was _not _completely done. At least not for her and Inuyasha.

"I know how we can get out," Inuyasha said, brightening Sango's mood once more. "The water for the lake—where does it come from? It must be somewhere that leads outside."

"But water's a lot smaller than we are. What if it dripped between the crevices in the rock? We couldn't get through that anyway." Mujina reasoned.

"It'll make the rock weaker at least," Sango felt him shrug.

Mujina gaped. "You can't honestly think that we could break through—no way!"

Inuyasha wasn't listening. He splashed out into the center of the pool, balancing on a piece of dead fish. He looked up, and a slight stream of water poured onto his upturned face. He spat it out, and shouted to Mujina, "We won't need to 'break through' anything."

He leapt up through the opening with Sango. It was a familiar place for both of them. Ah, so it was nighttime already. That would explain why this opening could exist without letting in too much light—the moon was still only a gentle sliver in the sky, though the rain still pelted down relentlessly.

Mujina shouted up after them, "Hey! What about me! Don't leave me in here!"

Grumbling, Inuyasha dropped back down and brought Mujina up as well. The girl gasped when she saw the sight of her other two traveling partners. She looked down at herself, and saw that she looked no better. They were all covered from head to toe in green and brown algae, soaked so that their clothes hung limply off their frames, and both Inuyasha and Sango looked as bad as they felt, sticky with blood and fish insides as well. "Where are we, though?" Mujina looked around, glancing with yearning at the clean waterfalls of pure water glancing off the rock and falling down below. _ Mm…clean water._

"The Cascades," Inuyasha recited from memories of the time he and Sango had first met Kagome-hime. He collapsed against a wall with an ironic chuckle.

"What are you laughing about?" Mujina sniffed. "You two look like you've been to hell and back, we all smell like shit, and you're laughing?"

Inuyasha shook his head, his actions governed like someone who knew an army was coming before it reached the outer borders.

And in a sense, that's exactly what was happening.

end chapter eleven

Notes on chapter:

10,000+ word chapter! W00t.

Ok. That was really lame. We haven't had a piece of crap like that since chapter seven (but I wrote that one in an hour in a half—this took a month and a half because I'm so lazy! Gah!)

Let's see if I can find anything I _liked_.

Well, I think the beginning, while lacking in point, was kind of nice, because it was sort of "Inuyasha is depressed, Sango is depressed, they get pulled out of that by a character they don't interact with much". Though, Sango was happy instead of sad and Inuyasha was just annoyed. It was nice that this story got to have a MatsuSango moment and a MujinaInuyasha…erm…thing. Even though I hated writing that section. A lot. I don't really like Mujina, and she and Inuyasha together are just too wild. And I liked how Sango's been going on all these excursions and freely allying herself with demons, but when the magic is over, she realizes she is still deeply tied to human civilization of the era. Mm…yes. I have been writing waaay too much critical analysis these days.

Though, you know, its better that I waited. Before, my English class was reading Tom Sawyer, so Sango probably would've ended up saying, "Oh I _dasn't _mars Matsu!" Or, "Inuyasha, 'twas a middling warm in school, warn't it?" Maybe even, "Oh I know, I'm a laying up sin for us both, but lord 'o me! I can't lay a whip to him, my own dead sister's boy…"

As I said, I AM SO SORRY THAT I DITCHED THIS STORY FOR OVER A FLIPPING MONTH! I just really. Really. REALLY. Did not want to write this chapter. And what came of that? Major procrastination and a badly written chapter. Ah, well. I hope things get better in chapter thirteen (not twelve, that's just as bad). Actually, I have a lot of excuses lined up for my absence.

My computer broke. I'm not lying!

I got sick. Yes, on top of everything, I was sick. I think I still am.

I am entering high school next year, and I am trying to get a 4.0 GPA for the third quarter. I can't think of a way to say this without it sounding like bragging, but I have all possible honors classes, piano lessons, Girl Scouts (evvvvillll) and Japanese language school, so I have a pretty full plate… lot's to do. And there's that annoying little girl named 'Fanta' who always wants me to do stuff for her when I have my own things to do…

I promise I will never take such a long break ever again. Er…at least not until chapter 16, which is my prolonged romance chapter. Yes, I finally did my outline, so I wasn't being totally unproductive. Romance…is not my thing. I like to read well-done ones, but I can't write it. I'll practice…

Thank you everyone!

Kalliel

カリエル


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